Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	79/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Chicago Sun-Times
Entertainment Weekly	A
Los Angeles Times
NME	5/10
Pitchfork Media	8.0/10
Q
Rolling Stone
Spin	8/10
The Village Voice	A−

When the Pawn... is the shortened title of the second album by American singer-songwriter Fiona Apple. The whole title is When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He'll Win the Whole Thing 'fore He Enters the Ring There's No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might so When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand and Remember That Depth Is the Greatest of Heights and If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where to Land and If You Fall It Won't Matter, Cuz You'll Know That You're Right. The album was released by Epic Records in the United States on November 9, 1999.

In 2010, Spin magazine named the album the 106th greatest of the last 25 years. A year later, Slant Magazine named it the 79th best album of the 1990s. The album was also critically and commercially successful and was certified platinum. The album earned a nomination at the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album.

The album title is a poem Apple wrote on tour after reading the readers' negative letters about her in the December 1997 issue of Spin magazine.

Rolling Stone magazine made fun of the title/poem, calling it, "When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Oh the Hell With It". "It came from being made fun of," she rued, "and then, of course, it becomes a thing I'm being made fun of for."

The album's title has become a source of trivia. On its release, it broke the record for longest album title at 444 characters (previously held by a volume in The Best... Album in the World...Ever!). However, in October 2007 Soulwax released their remix album Most of the Remixes, which has 100 characters more in its title. This was surpassed in 2008 by Chumbawamba's The Boy Bands Have Won..., whose full title contains 865 characters of text.

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