fiona apple - fetch the bolt cutters (2020)

not talking about anyone in this thread or that article’s writing but: it’s really exhausting how much negative criticism is just complete nonsense, like I feel like there’s a simpsons Viking element where some people just can’t deal with “not liking” something for basic reasons such as “I don’t like this person’s voice” and they have to come up with some bullshit theoretical framework to make their opinion “objective” or something. shots fired

I know what you mean. I think part of it is just a function of music writing as a genre, with its own set of assumptions and expectations.

The thing I don't get about the backlash to Soraya Roberts' article (now that I've read the whole thing) is that her framing device of her personal distaste highlights a bunch of what makes the album work for people who aren't her. The piece is more about her alienation and self-described neuroses than it is about the album being bad; it certainly doesn't read like she's trying to take the album down a peg or decry it as overrated or anything. The entire point of the piece is "it frustrates me that I can't get into this piece of work that has been embraced by a wide swath of my peers," not "why are people falling for this obvious shit", so unless you are just de facto against writers being up front about their viewpoint when offering opinions and analyzing things, I don't see why this piece would be objectionable.

The thing I don't get about the backlash to Soraya Roberts' article (now that I've read the whole thing) is that her framing device of her personal distaste highlights a bunch of what makes the album work for people who aren't her. The piece is more about her alienation and self-described neuroses than it is about the album being bad; it certainly doesn't read like she's trying to take the album down a peg or decry it as overrated or anything. The entire point of the piece is "it frustrates me that I can't get into this piece of work that has been embraced by a wide swath of my peers," not "why are people falling for this obvious shit", so unless you are just de facto against writers being up front about their viewpoint when offering opinions and analyzing things, I don't see why this piece would be objectionable.

― DJP, Tuesday, May 5, 2020 3:18 PM (thirty-four seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

otfm; also, someone who is lazily dismissing an album wouldn't email a music critic asking why people like it, unless that email consists of "wow you suck loser"

And I would also say that it is the highlighting of what makes the album work in the face of what she can't cosign that makes the piece interesting and a good read.

That’s the generous reading, yes.

There was already backlash from the moment FTBC was released as a consequence of how instantly and loudly it was celebrated. Pitchfork may have hurt initial perception of the record by posting their 10 before most people had the chance to hear it. They should have waited until the following Monday or something. It totally makes sense that instant loud praise gives people an idea that they should anticipate a true unifying moment, and it's disappointing and frustrating when you don't feel it right away.

I will admit that my initial reaction before hearing the album was "this is going to be like listening to that fucking Lana Del Rey album again"

hope is a dangerous thing!

it really bums me out, to be honest, that I read one of, in my opinion, the best pieces of music writing this year and everyone is dunking on it because it is not by a Designated Writer(tm) and doesn't close ranks around the Correct Opinion(tm) to have

Don't personally care if someone is pro or con this album, and it is admirable that she puts so much work into interrogating her own biases, but it is also jarring to see someone tasked with music writing admit to those biases.

this isn't running on a music site, though, nor is it a music review; it is an essay that happens to be about music, running on a general-purpose site

^^^

it really bums me out, to be honest, that I read one of, in my opinion, the best pieces of music writing this year and everyone is dunking on it because it is not by a Designated Writer(tm) and doesn't close ranks around the Correct Opinion(tm) to have

― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine),

Katherine, this is not the case. Many of us have endorsed it.

everyone is dunking on it because it is not by a Designated Writer(tm) and doesn't close ranks around the Correct Opinion(tm) to have

Who is "everyone" in this sentence? Because you are radically misrepresenting what I, for one, didn't like about the piece.

it seems that virtually everyone I've seen, with the exceptions of one or two people, has been dunking on it, primarily because "lol she isn't a music writer how dare she open her mouth" and "lol she doesn't like this kind of music how dare she open her mouth"

essentially, most (or "many," or whichever word is fitting) people seem to be treating it like it's the my husband's record collection blog, and it's like we read two entirely different things

This article is the flip side of the hyperbolic 10/10 reviews that breathlessly tell us that no one has ever made music like this before. Robert's is instead saying she found it incomprehensible and unpleasant, but in doing so lends credence to the line of thinking that mystifies this album in the first place.

The reality is, it's an above average collection of highly personal songs with some truly extraordinary vocal performances. Fiona Apple didn't reinvent the wheel, she just made a really good album that plays up her personal idiosyncrasies to great effect. What grates is that a passing familiarity with music would bear this out, and would allow people to engage with it materially as part of a musical tradition, rather than as some unknowable, alien object.

Fiona Apple didn't reinvent the wheel, she just made a really good album that plays up her personal idiosyncrasies to great effect. What grates is that a passing familiarity with music would bear this out

...no...? as someone who loves fiona apple, I can still conceive of someone who has "a passing familiarity with music," or even a deep familiarity with music, and yet does not think it's a really good album, or recognizes that it's a really good album that they don't personally get (which is where the piece seems to end up).

Sorry, to be clear, by bear this out, I mean that Apple didn't reinvent the wheel. I don't mean to imply that it is an undeniably great record. I'm totally happy with people not liking it or not relating to it. I'm less happy with the notion that it is somehow unprecedented.

If you haven't experience the precedent, you don't have a reference point. And I think it's fair to say that many of the sonic reference points are a little bit outside of the standard modern "singer-songwriter" wheelhouse (if there is such a thing). This is not that outlandish an angle for a non-music-critic to come to this album from

Look at all the Fiona bros

Love this record, but while "Ladies" doesn't sound just like it, it does give me some strong "Fooled Around and Fell in Love" vibes. Maybe it's the chords.

We're Fionabrahs, D.

fetch the bro cutters

katherine fwiw my first introduction to this article's existence was a chorus of people on my Facebook and Twitter feeds telling the author to "save it for her journal", so

Me I thought it was good

what I really want to read -- it may exist, there have been over 20 years for it to -- is someone really digging into and tracing the cabaret/vaudeville influence, because I know enough (and have read enough interviews) to know there is one, but not enough beyond that

Nobody I've recognized from around these parts, but that article kicked off another one of those weird twitter things where suddenly people are acting like they now have "permission" to admit they didn't like the album. Like somehow they were forbidden from saying so before there was an "official" voice of dissent?

I saw three or four tweets yesterday linking the article with variations of, "finally i can admit that i didn't really think the album was very good either".

Brionahs?

lol

xp to Katherine re "cabaret": certain 6/8 or 3/4 meter choices, certain chordal choices. Chronologically the first "cabaret" song in her catalog is "Shadowboxer" but Pawn is really where you start to get that influence

plus a lot of vocal choices

Yeah... the way she turns "braaaaaain" into a violently swinging melisma on "Every Single Night" is a sound I can only associate with cabaret or Weimar stuff

It's interesting though, when "cabaret" is mentioned as an influence on an artist/song my tastebuds turn purple but with Fiona she makes it work for some reason. That is the curiosity

going backwards here a bit. . .

if anyone has a problem with the "weird" vocalizations on this album, that's confusing. because from al green to kate bush, there's always been people who have idiosyncratic styles of singing in their music - and who also simultaneously make great pop records.

haven't read the linked piece. don't care to. not in a malicious way; just don't care.

also: fiona has covered some pre-rock pop music in the past. stuff like "blue skies", etc. i think her influences from that stuff are a big contributor to her 'cabaret' moments.

There's a rawness to her singing and the production overall that maybe helps sell it.

xp

xp -- there are a lot of people with idiosyncratic styles of singing, and a lot of people turned off by that.

For example,some people REALLY hated Macy Gray and she just had a gravelly voice

welp, if you wanna say al green is "experimental" because of it, idk what to say to that. it's fine to dislike someone's singing style, but it's a little farfetched to try to justify your dislike in that way.

and yeah: i was one of those people - macy gray has a horrendous voice. her music is not "weird" or "experimental" in any way whatsoever.

Fiona Apple ends the first song on the album with a Diamanda Galas-esque vocal freakout session. I know most people here are very used to that but we are not most people.

would you reckon that "most people" have heard a song by al green?

again, my discrepancy is not with disliking a singing style. who cares - you like it or you don't. but trying to pass that off in an "objective" way by saying it's "experimental or weird" music is the issue.

singers displaying idiosyncrasy is very common.

Nobody I've recognized from around these parts, but that article kicked off another one of those weird twitter things where suddenly people are acting like they now have "permission" to admit they didn't like the album. Like somehow they were forbidden from saying so before there was an "official" voice of dissent?

I saw three or four tweets yesterday linking the article with variations of, "finally i can admit that i didn't really think the album was very good either".

okay lol

is this like interviewing voters who said they secretly voted for Trump

Mary Margaret more than Diamanda, to my ears, but it's a good point DJP

Yes, totally MMO'H!

Macy Gray's voice (which is pretty much just her timbre) seems to be an entirely different thing than the vocalizations on this album, which I think it's entirely fair to call experimental -- particularly given that they're compared to Meredith Monk and Yoko Ono, both of whom make experimental music.

I like this album, but it’s nowhere near as odd or challenging as its detractors and some of its most ardent supporters are claiming.

would you reckon that "most people" have heard a song by al green?

yes

I like this album, but it’s nowhere near as odd or challenging as its detractors and some of its most ardent supporters are claiming.

― A White, White Gay (cryptosicko)

In my case I'd substitute "but" with "and."