fiona apple - fetch the bolt cutters (2020)

:D

have still really not decided how I feel about this album past track one -- I think I might at some point just have to give up and admit that I prefer the idler wheel

(track one, though, is brilliant and among the best things she's ever done)

this album reminds me a lot of trilectic the highest praise i can give an album

i keep expecting eskimo suit to come up next in the sequencing

expected this to be about the truly-awful-on-all-sides f*nt*no discourse

Newspaper has a Flowers of Romance thing going on... maybe?

oh yeah

Also - Jordan I have to pick your brain about ‘balanced’ rhythms and geometry and so on

Pretty sure Whiney was the last (if not only) ilxor to give a fuck about F*nt*no, and he's been scarce of late.

keep that shit outta this thread for as long as possible imo

I heard a Flowers of Romance last week too.

*a FOR approach

Some thoughts. . .

So I've been mulling this over for a while now and I'd just like to make a generally unclear post.

I've been a Fiona Apple fan since I was 19. The majority of my life at this point. Being a male into her music has always carried a bit of stigma along with it — hell, I've been a fan long enough to remember when being a fan, regardless of gender, was something that needed to be defended. My point in bringing this up is that, across the board in my travels, up until recently, the people who have been traditionally the most critical have been females. I've met many other people who were fans (casual to even bigger than myself), but none of those people (save one) who were simultaneously accepting of her music and critiquing it fairly were female. I've certainly met other female fans, but they will always have a superfluous, unrelated to the music, criticism. I'm not saying this is right or wrong, as I have absolutely no place to tell anyone how to treat or perceive their peers. I just don't understand it.

The biggest thing that I've seen as a criticism to her music —and I'm not saying that I share this view at all— is that she portrays herself as a "damsel in distress" and, subsequently, caters to a cliched "male fantasy" of rescuing the girl. No matter how many discussions I've had —going back to defending myself just for enjoying her music— I've ultimately been made to feel like I'm giving her music "extra credit" because of how she presents herself.

This is infuriating.

She's fucking brilliant and always has been. Truth be told, I've considered her like a makeshift soul singer for a very long time. 60s and 70s soul music was honestly the first time as a music fan I found myself listening to artists sing and talk about things and ideas that I had no knowledge of — and still finding myself able to understand and enjoy that perspective all the same. That's what soul music is after all, right? This new record is possibly her best one yet —especially in this regard— and, basically having grown up with her music, it's unbelievably satisfying.

To see that the vitriol towards her is seemingly stronger than ever is so disappointing. But maybe that will change as hopefully a new generation of fans will get into her wonderful music on the strength of the new album.

What a fantastic and expertly articulated album.

What vitriol? It’s the most critically acclaimed album in years! Idk, if you’re hanging out in any online places that are tossing vitriol at Fiona right now (not to be confused with genuine thoughtful critiques, I’m not saying everyone HAS to love the album)...maybe stop going to those places?

Yeah, I'm with Evol -- i've heard nothing but positive things about this album (granted mainly here on ILM, but also all the rave reviews).

Side note: my 8-year-old spent the weekend singing "I spread like strawberries, I climb like peas and beans". The number of listens required to get these songs stuck in your head is really astonishingly low.

Heavy Balloon through the end hits so fucking hard but it lands lightly somehow? Teary eyes, but I just start the album over again.

The number of listens required to get these songs stuck in your head is really astonishingly low.

otm - my partner, not a Fiona fan, started humming “kick me under the table all you want, I won’t shut up, I won’t shut up” unprompted today even though I’ve played it through for him only a few times so far.

The stickiness could hurt in the long run I feel - I’m already wary that I’m going to burn out on this album too quickly.

Epicenter of the Anti-Fiona vitriol :
I HATE APPLE

I currently have multiple hooks stuck in my head, probably with the wrong lyrics.

Also - Jordan I have to pick your brain about ‘balanced’ rhythms and geometry and so on

― Priory, Thursday, April 23, 2020 6:59 PM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

haha sure. Maybe we should have a thread for our musical OCD.

I’m so sad that this fucking quarantine is making us miss some potentially genius live performances of this record.

Fiona is notoriously histrionic when performing live, she’s always in “the zone”, doesn’t break character much live. There’s many manic moments in here that I’m dying to see played live.

/Also - Jordan I have to pick your brain about ‘balanced’ rhythms and geometry and so on

― Priory, Thursday, April 23, 2020 6:59 PM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink/

haha sure. Maybe we should have a thread for our musical OCD.

we haven't talked enough about how good For Her is

I don't even know what's going on in it but it's good

I haven't found a weak song yet.

good morning!

lol

The downbeat is exactly the same, the phrases are even, it's just that the melody starts on an upbeat. I think we must just hear rhythm/arrangements very differently!

― change display name (Jordan), Monday, April 20, 2020 8:26 AM (two weeks ago)

Yeah, you're right.

Nearly 2500 words that could easily be summed up in 5: "I don't get difficult music."

https://longreads.com/2020/05/04/i-dont-like-fiona-apple/

oh my god no

There are a lot of sentences in there that are very strange coming from a purported music critic.

But the second I heard whatever that sound is, I don’t know, a keyboard and cymbals chucka-chucka-chucka-ing, I thought, “Fuck, no.” I am not listening to that experimental shit.

Wut kind of music does this person usually listen to(?)

xp She's not a music critic, unless you mean Carl.

I thought the essay was an honest examination of Roberts's own reaction to the album within the inescapable context of other people's reactions. It's not meant to be a review.

I mean, there's all kind of stuff that's popular on this very board that I just shrug off unless I'm feeling particularly spicy that day, at which point I'll toss off a dismissive zing. I've never once felt the urge to construct a piece of this size to ostensibly sort out why and still not try very hard in the end.

The thesis of the piece looks like "this should be a message board post, not an article" but I was pleasantly surprised at how fine it was, though I was biased bc of all the positive stuff about Carl

"Bolt Cutters" is mixed and mastered really loud which also did well for MBDTF's reception but not so great for my own listening tastes, especially considering how dynamic "Idler Wheel" was but ah well

i have a separate complaint, they call that a long read???? kids these days

as someone who likes this album, the piece is in fact really good, reminds me of when longform music writing was more of a thing

I like it too, mainly because I’ve always felt kind of the same way about Beyoncé (and Lemonade in particular).

yeah it was a good piece!

I understand the "why don't I like this thing that all my putative peers like?" feeling. I've certainly talked myself into buying enough critically praised bullshit over the years. But "I don't like this thing that all my putative peers like" is not an inherently interesting statement. I'd almost always rather read someone telling me about a thing they do like. (I suspect that in this case, I would not like the things Roberts likes - the phrase "I am intimidated by the blues and by jazz and reject them because of how stupid they make me feel" was a giant clanging alarm bell.)

also weird that referencing Reich, Meredith Monk, and Yoko is apparently "critical flexing." sure, to the average man on the street two of those names are very obscure, but I think just about anyone who's reading Pitchfork would already have pretty decent familiarity with what's being described there.

I wish FTBC were as forbidding and avant-garde as she makes it out to be.

A number of sharp comments swathed in self-reflexivity.

xp Yeah, I mean, it's not difficult music (which is totally fine, it is what it is, but the what is this shit? reaction does not track).

‘Weird shit’, to boot. I don’t even like the album all that much but there’s a hyper-normative, anti-intellectualist streak to her argument that I find off-putting, despite how deftly she reframes it.

pom, the choral works from the 60s classical polls (partic. the berio and babbitt) helped prime me for the chaotic vocals on this album, so thanks for that.

also made me give a serious side-eye to that "no music has ever sounded like this" pitchfork logline.