The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do by Fiona Apple

The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do, Fiona Apple's fourth studio album, came out on Epic in 2012, seven years after Extraordinary Machine, and like When the Pawn... its tongue-twister title comes from a poem of her own. Charley Drayton produced it, and the arrangements are pared right down to bones and sinew, all rattling percussion and that raw, elastic voice.

"Every Single Night" tinkles like a music box gone slightly wrong, and "Hot Knife" builds to a giddy, drum-heavy rush. It's baroque pop gone feral. Critics adored it, it turned up on year-end and decade-end lists everywhere, and it earned a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Album. It also gave her the highest American debut of her career, with 72,000 copies sold in week one sending it to 3 on the Billboard 200, and in 2020 Rolling Stone ranked it 213th among the 500 greatest albums ever.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.