fiona apple - fetch the bolt cutters (2020)

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."

Practically everybody has heard "Let's Stay Together" without necessarily seeking it out.

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.

al green also very comparable to yoko then.

Anything can be compared to anything if you want to badly enough. Ch_ck E))y made a whole career out of it.

i'm just saying that if we're using the fifteen second performance at the end of the first track as a basis for labeling things "experimental", then we're going to need to redefine a lot of other things.

this reminds me of when the roots released phrenology and some people were writing off the entire album because of a thirty second bad brains homage and they didn't want to hear that on a hiphop record.

The article itself called the 10 seconds at the beginning of the first track "experimental."

huh, sounds like joni -another person who has made mounds of stupidly popular records- to me.

Not the vocals; the looped percussion sample before the piano comes in.

I said this upthread but this album is mixed and mastered really really really loud and I think that fact can attract and repel certain people in equal measure and find them using the word "experimental" as a proxy for "it is really loud"

yeah maybe it’s tin foil but seems like vocals are recorded/mixed differently others days )on pop/rock records esp) in a way I really can’t handle

differently “these days” ugh

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

See Alanis Morrissette's entire career for instance

see the dave matthews thread

Is 2020 the year of the great DMB reassessment?

was 2018 just the preamble?

"We've reassessed Dave Matthews and... he is still corny as fuck!"

Just listened to this---deluxe edition on youtube---for the first time, after a lot of things by and including Robert Wyatt, also Shelby Lynne's 2020 s/t---and I'm stuck by the compatibility: small group, bass, percussion, keyboards, usually piano, which is what seems like the main writing instrument, for a freewheeling yet instantly recognizable style---depplyed,in Apple's case, for challenging and sometimes(?) lavishing the object of her attentions with self-expression and "idiomatic to idiosyncratic but clear enough" results, as I said about Lynne's album---and maybe Apple's learned something from jazz, like the other two (upthread, she's quoted re Miriam Makeba, and I get some of that too, also the oblique strokes of xpost non-standardbearers Kate Bush and Joan Armatrading)(Tuneyards, or some of the same sonic sensibility, although Apple came first, recording-wise). Nevertheless, she's got her own agenda, own axes and axis, as always.
On first listen, her music seems like it's in good shape---still tensile, even robust in its lean way, despite and maybe because of some more allnighters now and then and again and again---a driving and driven quality in there, but her own kind of discipline, pace---not quite like anybody else, despite the comparisons (though I would not have been surprised if she hadn't lasted very long, but then I ditto re Jerry Lee and Little Richard). But---is it basically just more of the same, of a good ol' artist we're glad to get more of? If so, does it "basically" matter?? Considering that she, the musical persona and creator, *isn't* quite like anybody else, oh hell no: that nobody else, even from the small convergence I've mentioned, will quite do as substitute---but I wonder if I will listen to this, incl. in memory, as much as I do these other (more prolific) artists, or did listen to her previous albums---years ago, with all those years between them, and this one too: does that matter, momentum and impact-wise? As long as she seems to be more about holding the fort than breakthroughs--although who knows what kind of offstage breakthroughs it might have taken for her to get this far.

the vocal arrangements on "newspaper" >>>>>>>>>>

it definitely qualifies as some kind of breakthrough from the close attention it's received, irrespective of quality or innovation or consistency relative to her previous work. it's a really good album, I wish that was a good enough hook for critics who feel the need to exaggerate how unprecedented and avant garde it is

I used to get a lot of shit from indie types for liking her (and other mostly dissimilar women who were grouped together), I assume at least some of the hype from these circles is motivated by a need to redress years of that bullshit

some of the more negative reactions elsewhere are a bit "i'm the only person brave enough to admit beyonce sucks" which is tedious

The person who posts as mostly dylan on Twitter has this list of personnel on new Dylan album, which supposedly will incl. FA (and Blake Mills) as additional musicians, if it doesn't show up below:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EatdRdOWAAERL5L?format=jpg&name=medium

How is this holding up for everyone?

splendidly. just waiting for my vinyl.

It's still good, but I burned out quickly

Still great but that Pitchfork review has aged extremely poorly, as was always likely.

I love Tidal which I suspect is her only good album

I was never a fan previously, but I think this is strong and fresh and I love how confident she is with her powers. It’s also gone over very well with my 18yo daughter and consequently I like how few fucks Apple gives about image and knowing her place.

It’s still great

got the vinyl! hooray! good thing my stereo's in storage!

d`oh

Tidal which I suspect is her only good album

― this has been the best year fuiud (rip van wanko), Sunday, July 19, 2020 4:47 AM

also ya, no

I hadn't listened to this before today not because I didn't think it would be any good but *because* I knew it would good and was just waiting for the right day. And hey, it's really good!

after the dust has settled, "heavy balloon" is *easily* my favorite track on this.

mine too

It's difficult listening to this album; it reminds me of the first stage of quarantine, i.e. April.

I think it's better for that; a reminder that awesomeness can still exist.

Yep, same as you, Al

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT4SZiEgJ_g

live versions!

Thanks. She’s an incredible live performer.

An amazing interview/story with the real Shameika and her reunion with Fiona: https://pitchfork.com/features/article/fiona-apple-shameika-fetch-the-bolt-cutters-interview/

She turned out to be a rapper so of course they collab'd: https://open.spotify.com/track/5IelFDwkj5eJEnTSfwroxa?si=mlk-AyQHQuKY3R14anvdCg

And there's also a video now for "Shameika":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM63Tzv-uZg

Love that they were reunited by their New Yorker-reading 3rd-grade teacher.

really glad this worked out in the best way possible