The cool kids voted to get rid of me

Completing my trip up The Guardian's Best Albums of 2020 list...

#1 : Fetch The Bolt Cutters - Fiona Apple

Recorded over a five-year spell in her California home, Fetch the Bolt Cutters encompasses every euphoric rush and hopeless roar as Fiona Apple telescopes between historic incidents that once diminished her to find their common thread. Its homespun rhythms, swaggering and souring piano, and sweet harmonies laced with industrial clatter provide the mercurial force for her to break open the codes of silence and mistrust that exploitative men use to divide women. She breaks free of constrictions, skewers and then undresses the affectations used by the powerful to conceal their abuses, and interrogates her own part in these structures. Filled with a lifetime’s worth of compassion, Fetch the Bolt Cutters isn’t just the album of 2020 but a future classic, a rare combination of innovation and profound deep feeling.

And so, we finally reach #1!  Would it be a worthy winner?!?  Well...

Fiona Apple is firmly in my wheelhouse, but I don't love her quite as much as some of her contemporaries - I've heard a couple of her albums and while I quite like them, I don't love them.  So I had high hopes for this album - her masterpiece according to not only The Guardian but a lot of other end of years lists.  So did it deliver?!?  Well...

It is, without doubt, a very clever and complex album - with intelligent, intriguing lyrics overlaying skilful playing and tricksy rhythms.  It also appears to have a lot to say, covering many aspects of Apple's life and relationships over a considerable length of time.  But did I like it?!?  Well... 

I liked bits of it, but my overall impression is that it's trying a bit too hard to challenge my expectations for it to be instantly likeable.  There are points where she sings notes longer than she can obviously hold them, times where songs are extended beyond their obvious lengths or the rhythms are deliberately awkward. It all feels a bit teenager-ish, daring me to point any of this out, so it can shout back "YOU JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND!".  And OK, maybe I don't young lady - but why don't you just go to your room to have a think about what you've done anyway?!?

Wikipedia has PLENTY to say about the album - mostly along the lines of "YOU JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND IT".  Oh well.  It also makes the point that the album cover was thrown together at short notice because the album's release was brought forward - but you'd never guess that now, would you?!?  "Customers also listened to" St Vincent (who I'd definitely make sit on the challenging step alongside Fiona) and Jenny Lewis (who seems better behaved than the other two to me, but has her moments).  All in all, I can quite see how this made it to #1 with the critics, but I'm not sure it would feature on too many real people's top 10 lists - I suspect I could grow to love it, but it would take multiple listens which I currently have neither the time nor the inclination for.

And that's it for this list and for 2020 - I'll do a recap with some thoughts sometime in the new year, but in the meantime I wish you and your family all the best for 2021.

#2 - Comfortably clear of the rest of the field for me
2020 - year done!