In addition to orchestrating Apple’s recording contract, Slater also served as her manager and producer of her debut album. Released in July 1996, Tidal was the grand manifestation of not only Apple’s natural and cultivated artistry, but also Slater’s conviction in the dynamic songstress’ many talents. Indeed, the 10-track LP was expertly produced by Slater, bolstered by an impressive group of contributing musicians, most notably producer/multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire Jon Brion. But Tidal’s power derives primarily from Apple’s adept piano playing, introspective lyrics, and magnetic vocals, a combination that Slater needed to push Apple to embrace with confidence.

“Honestly, I'm not a very skilled pianist,” Apple admitted during a 1997 Keyboard magazine interview. “I can play my own stuff, obviously better than anyone else can, but as far as other music goes, I'm really not very good. It's hard because...when we were making the album, Andy Slater was always saying, ‘No we have to take it back to what you wrote it on. Back to the roots, that's the only way it's going to sound real.’ And the whole time I was saying ‘But I don't want to play piano on this. I only wrote songs on the piano because it's the only instrument I know. I don't want this to be a fuckin' piano album.’ But Andy kept saying, ‘No, this is how you sound. This is you.’”

Not simply a “fuckin’ piano album,” albeit a beautifully crafted one, Tidal is a profoundly brave and confessional song suite fueled by Apple’s fearless candor and self-possession. Nowhere is this more evident than on the soul-baring “Sullen Girl,” a stark, minimalist composition buoyed by aquatic-themed references throughout, most eloquently articulated in the song’s chorus (“It's calm under the waves / In the blue of my oblivion”). Throughout her career, Apple has openly discussed being raped at the age of 12 outside of her mother’s Manhattan apartment, a life-altering experience, the psychological and emotional aftermath of which she alludes to in the song’s second verse, when she sings “But he washed me 'shore / And he took my pearl / And left an empty shell of me.”

Depending on your interpretation of the plaintive “The Child is Gone,” a somber examination of innocence lost that seemingly functions as a thematic extension of “Sullen Girl,” Apple may be referencing the same experience here as well. Some have latched on to a more literal meaning within Apple’s lyrics, suggestive of the actual loss of a child by way of abortion or miscarriage. Whatever your particular reading may be, this is unquestionably one of Tidal’s most poignant moments.