Fiona Apple was born on 13th September 1977 is a Grammy-winning American singer-songwriter. She gained popularity through her 1996 album Tidal, especially with the single "Criminal" and its music video. Her music is influenced by everything from early jazz, pop, to alt-rock. It is also characterized by Apple's candid personal lyrics and imaginative productions, often featuring idiosyncratic arrangements with instruments as varied as the french horn and optigan."Criminal," the third single, became Apple's breakthrough hit. The song reached the top forty on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, while the controversial Mark Romanek-directed music video ? in which a scantily-clad Apple cavorted in a '70s-era tract house ? became very popular on MTV. Apple later said: "I decided if I was going to be exploited, then I would do the exploiting myself"It did not fare as well commercially as her debut, though it was an RIAA-certified platinum album and sold 1 million copies in the U.S. The album's lead single, "Fast as You Can", reached the top 20 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart and became Apple's first Top 40 hit in the UK. The videos for two follow-up singles, "Paper Bag" and "Limp" (directed by then-boyfriend Anderson), received very little play.Apple recorded a cover of "Sally's Song" for the special edition release of the soundtrack, released in 2006, for the Tim Burton film The Nightmare Before Christmas. In May 2006 Apple paid tribute to Elvis Costello on VH1's concert series Decades Rock Live by performing Costello's hit "I Want You"; her version was subsequently released as a digital single.
