Fiona Apple’s Fetishistic Perfection

How I overcame teenage lust to recontextualize my love of the world’s most perfect musical artist

Fetch The Bolt Cutters — Fiona Apple’s just-released fifth album — has received an extraordinarily rare perfect ten score from Pitchfork. It’s the second time in my life — her debut album Tidal being the first — where I’ve felt profoundly inspired by the excellent quality of Apple’s music. However, Fetch The Bolt Cutters lacks the gauzy veneer of funky trip-hop enhanced by taboo fetishism and 70s pornography that guided how and why I discovered and fell in lust with Tidal 24 years ago. Thus, my appreciation of her latest output feels more uniquely pure. Finally, detaching my lustful, fetishistic teenage desires and the impact of male gaze-driven marketing away from Fiona Apple’s brilliant career has been beneficial. As well, a quarter-century later, I’ve reframed both my sexual eye and musical heart. Cutting the metaphorical bolts on why I love people and how I listen to music has been an astounding experience.

“Criminal” was the fifth of six singles from Tidal released within an eighteen-month album push that I distinctly remember mattering nary a whit to me while I was a high-school senior and college freshman in 1996. Those were the days where my ears were primarily hearing The Fugees and…