One of the more thought-provoking critical observations I've come across lately (Amy Linden's, to be exact) is the claim that the current crop of young black singers could learn something from the 22-year-old singer-songwriter Fiona Apple about soul. That's "soul" as in Soul, as in Gladys and Nina, as in "I Can't Stand the Rain" and "Natural Woman," which, come to think of it, was written by Carole King when she was a skinny white New Yorker just like Apple.

While I watched Apple perform May 8 at Nakano Sun Plaza, it did occur to me that the groaning, wailing, writhing woman onstage had more in common with the classic gospel-influenced black singers of the '60s and early '70s than she did with other white female singer-songwriters in their early 20s who sport pierced navels and celebrate inner demons.

But soulful singing doesn't make her a Soul Singer. And it's not just because of her music, which is difficult to pigeonhole. In Japan, Sony pushed her second album, "When the Pawn . . . etc.," with the ad copy "I am music. The genre is Fiona Apple," which communicates both the uniqueness of her songs and their arty self-consciousness.