Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Beautiful voice, pretentious album: Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters reviewed

Apple's latest ignores almost everything that makes music wonderful

issue 09 May 2020
Grade: C+

Where did they all come from, the quirky yet meaningful rock chicks who don’t have a decent song between them yet put out albums by the bucketload? Back in the day it was just Joni Mitchell, who had four good songs, Laura Nyro who had two and Dory Previn who had one.

Now there are thousands of these creatures, flaunting their intemperance without showing much brilliance. And all slavered over by the (still male) music press. Years of oppression, of being disregarded, they would argue. But disregarded for very good reasons, in almost all cases. Yeah, Carole King is ten times the songwriter James Taylor ever was. I will give you that. We got that wrong. But that doesn’t mean we have to be tormented for eternity by the likes of Laura flipping Marling, does it?

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