In some ways, her defensive stance is justified. In her youth, she earned, along with the adoration, ample jeers. There she was in the “Criminal” video writhing in her underwear like a malnourished postgrunge Lolita. Then came the infamous 1997 MTV Video Music Awards acceptance speech, in which she told viewers, “This world”—meaning the music industry—“is bullshit, and you shouldn’t model your life [around] what you think that we think is cool.” (Some called her courageous; others called her an ingrate.) She capped her rep for being difficult at a Manhattan show in 2000 when, after extensive sound problems, she simply walked off the stage and refused to play. Looking back, she says she isn’t ashamed of her past adolescent behavior. “If I was sullen, it was because I had a hard time putting on that showbiz smile.”
As for the new album, with the exception of the dreamily romantic “Anything We Want,” you won’t find much of a smile—showbiz or otherwise. Recorded with no professional producer, it’s arguably Apple’s most stripped-down, avant-garde work yet, full of harsh, homemade percussion (in one track, she is stomping on the hood of a truck, and in another she plays a kind of triangle she made out of old bathroom pipes); her trademark atonal piano; and familiarly self-recriminating lyrics like “How can I ask anyone to love me/When all I do is beg to be left alone.”
“I have this thing where I think I’m writing a love song, but then later I realize it’s kind of twisted,” she says, laughing. One song, “Jonathan,” is about Jonathan Ames, the novelist and creator of the late HBO series Bored to Death, whom she dated from 2007 until about a year and a half ago. Why’d they break up? “Because we’re both weirdos?” is all she’ll offer, though she mentions they’re still good friends. But Apple, currently single, says that, despite her lyrics, she doesn’t believe she’s hopelessly unlovable. “I have moments of supreme confidence,” she insists. “If I’m in a romantic relationship, whatever hate I have for myself goes out the window. I beat up on myself, but I’m not somebody who’s uptight in bed.”
For now, though, she seems semi-comfortable as the oddball loner she’s grown up to be. On most days, she doesn’t talk to anyone but Brandon—and her pit bull. “I have a lot of one-way conversations with her in strange accents while she follows me around the house,” she says, then suddenly slips into a Russian accent. “Like, Vhen you going to get a degree, make yourself useful? You can’t keep bringing boys back here, okay? You’re a slut.” In other words, Apple may be having a comeback, but she’s as bracingly weird as ever. “One of the younger guys in my band said to me the other day, totally sincerely, ‘You’re going to be one of those cat ladies,’ which I’d be fine with. But, hey, next year could look completely different. I have no expectations of anything but change.”
