Singer extraordinaire Neko Case feels a bit like this when it comes to the categorization of music:
There's a contrary school of thought -- the Econ class, if you will -- that would insist that the moment said art is placed for sale into the capitalist economy, valuation becomes necessary, and with that categorization, rankings, and good/bad assessments follow.
As much as I do stand by my take above, I also look at it simply like this: Most people lack the time, interest, and requisite years of comparative exposure to dig in on any piece of art (I mean rock and/or roll music for the purposes of this post) and do better to refer to someone else's recommendations. Reviews, rankings, and lists -- including the Les Coole year-end playlists, can be viewed as having someone else do the legwork for you busy, hard-working folks. It's the way a novice listener will learn that even though Exile on Main Street and Black and Blue are separated by just four years, there's a vast difference in lasting quality between the two records, so they should proceed directly to the former.
It's an inherently fallible concept, leaving it to some other person to gauge how much you'll like a song or an album. Read reviews of Sandinista! in 1980 or Paul's Boutique in 1989. (Or Exile in 1972, amazingly enough. Lester Bangs called it "the worst studio album the Stones have ever made.") People get it wrong, especially critics with bloated egos.
But music reviews with numerical scoring designations have their place. Always have.
I myself gravitate to amalgams like metacritic.com, aggregates of prominent reviews from around the world. That way a one-off pan from some cranky critic only affects the overall score a tiny bit (mean, median, and mode, but not range), whereas if that one critic wrote for your go-to ragsheet, you might miss Social Distortion and go after 12 Inches of Snow.
Anyway, the reason I bring it up is that I haven't -- if ever, it hasn't been often -- seen such unanimity on that site for any album.
Wow.
- The New York Times (100) - a bold, cathartic, challenging masterpiece.
- Pitchfork (100) - Fiona Apple’s fifth record is unbound, a wild symphony of the everyday, an unyielding masterpiece. No music has ever sounded quite like it.
- Paste (97) - Fiona Apple is Mesmerizing Beyond Belief on Fetch the Bolt Cutters; the singer’s brilliant fifth album is eerily clairvoyant and brash in the most extraordinary way
- Variety (96) - It may be way early to say it’s the most satisfying album of the year, but if there are any more to come along this good, 2020 is not going to feel like such a waste of time after all.
- Boston Globe (90) - sense of awe giving it a defiant energy. ... A thrill ride.
- The AV Club (100) - a zenith of liberation and experimentation
- Consequence of Sound (100) - an Untethered Masterpiece
- The Guardian (100) - a glorious eruption
- Glide Magazine (100) - triumphant; the album exudes freedom, it exudes breaking constraints, it exudes Fiona Apple, and it might just be the album that we look back on when we think back to this COVID-19 era.
- The Line of Best Fit (100) - Albums like this feel important because they unflinchingly capture the smorgasbord of life. On the other hand… releases like this don’t happen often, so why squander the moment? Fuck it. Fetch the bolt cutters. This feels special.
- Exclaim (100) - The scope of Fetch the Bolt Cutters' meaning, its infinite feeling, will likely take years to fully absorb. An album like this doesn't come often, and an artist like Apple will never come again
Dig in here for more, and for links to the actual reviews.
Here's my thought on it, after listening to it 4 or 5 times since Friday. Nearly every review says something similar, but in more flowery, SAT (RIP) terms:
Fiona Apple recorded this in her house, and she incorporates some unorthodox instrumentation (whacking kitchen utensils as percussion) and sounds (dogs barking and washing machines washing) into a mix of her enviably pretty vocals, her piano/keyboard, and a few other instruments. The lyrics, issued in lovely song, aggressive chant, or spoken word, are Fiona Apple-style rebellious and resentful, angry and not only not taking your shit any more, but calling you on the carpet. The poetry is as impressive as her otherworldly voice. The music is decidedly not studio-grade -- in a mostly great, D.I.Y. way, which is what the fuss seems to be mostly about. Tom Waits in the 80's sort of stuff. Ultimately, I like but don't love it. I am drawn to hookier melodies than she offers. I do appreciate its style and merit; I just don't know how much I'll come back to it in the years to come.
Not a review. Just another Dear Diary moment from Les Coole and/or Whitney.
Fetch the Bottle Opener.
Posts
44 comments:
I love this: “art is art, and as such there can be no universal good or bad; there's just shit you like and shit you don't.” Additionally, what you like and don’t like can change over time as the beholder experiences new things. That doesn’t make the original art any better or worse, it just changes the audience perspective. I think people often mistake “timeless” as synonymous with good. Will something “stand the test of time” is used as a litmus test, but that discounts the joy and value that a song or piece of art can bring in the moment it is experienced.
I’m not sure the “Econ Class” view differs all that much. Goods, including art, don’t have any universal intrinsic value. The good itself is not good or bad. Instead, the value is determined by what demand exists relative to the supply. If, in that moment in time people like something, they will be willing to pay more for it. Later, they may like the same good more or less, which will change how they value the item, but not the nature of the item itself. A tulip was a beautiful flower before and after the tulip mania, all that changed was people’s desire.
As for Fiona, I wonder how much groupthink is going into those reviews. Once the gushing reviews begin from respected corners of the music pundit class, do the other music intelligentsia fear getting left behind for failing to see the alleged genius of the album?
For the Econ part, I should have said, universal intrinsic FINANCIAL value”.
Timmy, well put, and that last sentence of your first comment definitely resonates with me. There’s an Emperor’s New Clothes feel to the almost frenetic flow of fawning. Nobody wants to be the plebeian pair of ears contrasting with the critic clique. And the fact that x number of years ago (5 or 50) an album like this may well have been panned as noisy and weird experimentation means that the “evolved” critics must jump on the genius masterpiece wagon.
Anyway, it’s pretty good music. Lots of hype, though, and you can listen to the recently excommunicated Flav for what to do about that. Yo, Terminator X.
Some people say cucumbers taste better pickled.
npr is streaming the fiona apple album here: https://www.npr.org/2020/04/19/838236937/the-wit-wisdom-and-awe-of-fiona-apples-fetch-the-bolt-cutters
if you'd like to make up your own mind
to be more precise, npr has a couple of playlists that offer 30 second samples. it you'd like to make up a sample of your own mind.
Google music is also streaming it. It reminds of Tune-yards with 25% less out there riffs. Two listens in and like most of it.
In other news, Pitchfork was not so flattering to the new Beastie's doc.
Here's a review for ya. That Pitchfork review SUCKS. The author's take is that there are no surprising, revelatory, or off-beat moments in the documentary whatsoever. And then, as if to prove it, he recounts every segment of the film in aggravating detail. No, there's nothing to "spoil," per se, but the guy seems to try to do so, anyway, even indicating what the closing song over the credits is so it won't seem fresh to any other viewers. Avoid that review if you plan to watch the doc.
Fuckin' critics. (Spoken like Verbal Kint, with tears in eyes.)
wow! lester bangs shit the bed with that "exile" review. I guess i will check out the Fiona apple thing.
in much bigger news, i just dropped a new tune. check it out and give me some Soundcloud stats . . .
https://soundcloud.com/user-288228814/feral-hogs-at-the-strip-mall
I dig it, Dave. I like the retro-newsworthy topic of feral hogs.
I still don't like the name Moving Rocks. Bring back Greasetruck. And the grease trucks.
News from our chum Paci in Munich, Oktoberfest 2020 was cancelled today. That’s a bummer for a lot of reasons, but chief among them is a sobering realization that the big events that highlight our normal years look to be cancelled well into the fall and beyond.
Now back to talking about and making music. F this.
Musically speaking, I may be a proficient enough fiddler when this is over to play when people are around. I'm sure my wife wouldn't mind me sawing on it elsewhere.
greasetruck is a drone band from canada, unfortunately . . .
https://soundcloud.com/greasetruck
no way I'm being greasetruck2
You could give a subtle hat tip to our pal from the 'Neck and go with greasewagon?
Does anyone else see the irony that a quote about frat boy assholes made its way approvingly into a blog by/for frat boy assholes?
evolved frat boy assholes, z. evolved.
Pablo Picasso never got called an asshole. Not like you.
Speaking of making music and Picasso, here's a catchy little tune by late Texas tunesmith Guy Clark, called "Picasso's Mandolin."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UmdSiJMrgc
TB and now Gronk in Tampa? Before the Gronk pick up I realized I must have missed out on some back and forth here on the topic, or was there none?
i do not agree with neko. she needs to read aristotle's "poetics" for some aesthetic theory. though aristotle wore a toga, he was hardly a frat boy.
you can judge art, once you make your algorithm apparent, as aristotle explained over two thousand years ago. you just have to determine what's most important and so forth. he's got a very clear list for drama, starting with plot and action (which he believes determines all character) and ending with spectacle. he would not love marvel movies.
if you're most concerned with the lyrics, you're going to favor one type of music. the melody, another. the beat, the sound-- you sort of have to order things and then you can make some distinctions. i think you can make some judgments within genres as well, but it'stoughto judge apples and oranges. if you like lyrics and melody, you might go for the beatles. if you like the overall sound and vibe of the music, the rhythm and don't care what the fuck the lyrics are about as long as they sound cool, then you'll go for the stones (i go for the stones of course . . . god forbid if it were otherwise). that's why "crooked rain crooked rain" is better than "eight arms to hold you," if you're judging within genre.
Never change, Dave.
those of you that have yet to have a colonoscopy are missing out on the joy of the day before.
I'll check out that Guy Clark tune. My Picasso lyric was the Jonathan Richman/Modern Lovers song, as you all know. My favorite song by them. My favorite song by Citizen Cope is also called "Pablo Picasso." My favorite artist? Nope. Salvador Dali. Maybe. Maybe James Ensor.
Been there, and over-shared my prepping experience on this forum. It’s an experience like no other.
this is my third one. i'd almost forgotten how much it sucks.
You’ll never forget your first Gumby. Joke for at most two.
gave the fiona apple album the ol' college try. i don't like it. way too many lyrics, way too many crystal clear on the nose lyrics. i felt like i was in a hip broadway musical.
if you told me two days ago that i'd be having a twitter conversation with doug glanville about a pickup basketball game that included terry francona, curtis pride, and michael jordan, i don't think i would've believed you.
I did tell you that two days ago, rob. You drink too much.
probably true. have a clean bill of colorectal health, though. want me to post the pictures?
Congrats for your rectum.
Weird, that’s how I sign all my business correspondence
A mock draft I saw has 4 Bama guys in the top 13. Ridiculous how perpetually loaded that school is.
I need to get the rectum audit on the books.
Interesting. Alabama is perpetually loaded. Rob is perpetually loaded. Rob roots for Alabama. It now makes sense.
Or if you're into alliteration : rectum referendum / colon consultation.
I'll come up with others in the five years until my time is up.
I'm surprised none of you lefties made a bigger deal out of the UAW backing Joey Bides. They backed Trump four years ago. They have 400,000 active members and 580,000 retired members. I'm sure some will stay with Donnie, but many won't.
We wanna get loaded, and we wanna have a good time.
And that's what we're gonna do
uaw backed clinton in 2016. the uae, on the other hand, was trumptastic.
Taught my daughter to skate yesterday. As in skateboard. She took to it pretty quickly and is really into it. Bought to go for a skate through the neighborhood again.
zwoman came back from the liquor store with a case of Samuel Smith India Ale, a handle of Chopin vodka, six bottles of wine and a pallet of mixers. I am, accordingly, buzzed.
Did you get inspired to drink after heckling a dad and his son running on the street today?
Or vice versa?
who'd you heckle, zman?
Post a Comment