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There are albums, and then there are interventions. When Fiona Apple released “Fetch the Bolt Cutters" in 2020, it wasn’t just music. It was a manifesto. While much of the pop landscape was bent toward precision—chasing the digital dream of perfect harmonies and flawless production—Apple’s album emerged like an interruption, a necessary rupture. Here was a record that sounded, at times, unfinished. Dogs barked in the background, drums clattered unevenly, vocals wavered between whispers and guttural cries. Yet, it was precisely in its jaggedness that “Fetch the Bolt Cutters" felt complete, resonating with listeners as a celebration of authenticity, in defiance of the polished facade the world demanded.
Fiona Apple has always stood on the fringes of popular culture. But with “Fetch the Bolt Cutters,” she crystallized a broader cultural shift—the rise of ‘anti-perfectionism’ in music, a movement that embraces imperfection as a counterpoint to the hyper-curated aesthetics dominating social media and, increasingly, our daily lives.
Apple’s use of unconventional sounds, like dogs barking or the clatter of uneven drums, wasn’t a careless afterthought; it was deliberate. These raw, unscripted moments reflect the unpredictability of life. Her work was undoubtedly influenced by earlier experimental artists—perhaps traces of artists like Kate Bush, who pioneered emotionally rich, avant-garde production. The starkness of Apple’s sound made it clear she was uninterested in delivering perfection. Instead, she leaned into imperfection, echoing the spirit of those influences while crafting something distinctly her own. Her willingness to embrace raw, unpolished sounds has since inspired a wave of artists who, too, see beauty in noise—artists like Phoebe Bridgers, who often incorporates environmental sounds or textured, imperfect layers into her tracks, pushing back against the industry’s standards of seamless production.
In today’s digital world, platforms like Instagram and TikTok operate as curators of reality, reshaping how we see, hear, and even understand ourselves. The soundtracks to our scrolling lives are perfected in every way—autotuned to precision, layered with effects, edited to fit the algorithm. The music industry, too, has adapted to this age of hyper-curation. Contemporary pop music is engineered to achieve maximum replayability, its hooks surgically implanted in our brains by the exacting hand of sound engineers and algorithms alike.
There’s a certain tyranny in perfection, though. The curated life—whether through images, sounds, or words—demands a continuous editing of the self, a relentless reformatting of identity into something more digestible, more profitable. There’s no room for rough edges or vulnerability when your persona is constructed from curated snapshots and flawlessly timed audio clips. The world of digital perfection offers us escape, but at the cost of depth. What we lose in this pursuit is the rawness that makes art, and life, so compelling.
Apple’s music, in contrast, is a reminder that imperfection—messy, chaotic, loud—is what renders art alive. In an age where everything is polished to gleaming perfection, her songs offer an alternative: the beauty of letting go, of embracing what is unfinished and unresolved.
“Fetch the Bolt Cutters” wasn’t just a musical release; it was a protest. Recorded largely at home over several years, the album features unconventional percussion—drums pounded on walls and furniture, anything that could be found in Apple’s Los Angeles home. At times, the sounds are brash, even abrasive. The album’s title track opens with a declaration of defiance: “I’ve been in here too long,” Apple sings, “I gotta get out.”
That line could well sum up the ethos of the entire album, which seeks to break free from the constraints not only of genre, but of cultural expectations. The conventional markers of “good” music—polished production, perfect timing, seamless transitions—are nowhere to be found. Instead, Apple offers us something deeply human: songs that are vulnerable, sometimes off-kilter, and occasionally jarring.
Take the song “Under the Table,” where Apple sings about refusing to stay silent at a formal dinner, even when social pressure demands it. “Kick me under the table all you want, I won’t shut up,” she growls. The defiance is palpable, not only in the lyrics, but in the raw energy of her delivery. There’s no effort to smooth over the roughness here; it’s an anthem for anyone who has ever felt pressured to conform, to be quieter, smaller, more acceptable.
This resistance to being silenced, to adhering to the ‘rules’ of what music should sound like, is central to Apple’s anti-perfectionism. She’s not interested in delivering something neat and tidy. She wants to confront, provoke, and challenge the very notion that music—or art, or life—can be perfected. Her work is a reminder that perfection is an illusion, one that is often used to control, limit, and restrict the creative spirit.
Apple is far from alone in this rejection of hyper-curation. Across the musical landscape, artists like Phoebe Bridgers, Mitski, and Adrianne Lenker (of Big Thief) have similarly embraced imperfection, both in their sound and in their public personas. Bridgers, for instance, has been lauded for her emotionally raw lyrics, which often lay bare her struggles with depression, anxiety, and heartbreak. Mitski’s music, too, revels in emotional complexity, often refusing resolution in favor of ambiguity and tension. The production of their music mirrors this ethos; instead of flawlessly polished instrumentation, there’s an embrace of rough, even haunting soundscapes. Like Apple, these artists weave unconventional noises—clatters, echoes, and dissonances—into their songs, creating entire worlds that feel both personal and fragmented.
What unites these artists is not genre, but a shared commitment to authenticity in a world that increasingly prizes the opposite. There’s bravery in this approach, especially for women in the music industry, who have long been subject to intense scrutiny and pressure to present themselves in a particular way. Apple, Bridgers, Mitski, and others are pushing back against those expectations, reclaiming their right to be messy, complicated, and imperfect.
This cultural rebellion extends beyond music. In recent years, there has been a broader societal movement toward embracing imperfection, particularly in areas like body image and mental health. The body positivity movement, for instance, encourages people to celebrate their bodies as they are, rather than striving for an unattainable ideal of physical perfection. Similarly, mental health advocates have worked to destigmatize vulnerability, encouraging open conversations about anxiety, depression, and other challenges that are often hidden in a society obsessed with appearing flawless.
Apple’s music is, therefore, part of a larger cultural shift, one that seeks to reclaim the beauty of imperfection in all its forms. Her own journey with body image and vulnerability could be seen in earlier songs like “Paper Bag,” where she sang, “hunger hurts but starving works.” It reflected the pressure she faced in the superficial world of 90s diet culture—pressures that she has since moved beyond. Now, her work feels more like a reclamation of self, unbound by those rigid expectations.
The rise of anti-perfectionism in music speaks to a deeper longing in our culture, a hunger for something real in the midst of so much artificiality. Social media may offer us the illusion of connection, but the curated lives we see online often leave us feeling more disconnected than ever. Music, at its best, can cut through that illusion, offering us a space where we can confront our emotions, our desires, and our imperfections head-on.
Fiona Apple’s work reminds us that there is power in imperfection. In embracing her flaws—both in her music and in her life—she offers us an alternative to the relentless pursuit of perfection that has come to dominate our culture. Her songs are a testament to the fact that art is not about erasing our mistakes, but about finding beauty in them.
In the end, what Apple offers us is not just music, but permission—permission to be messy, to be unfinished, to be real. And in a world that so often demands the opposite, that’s a revolution in itself.
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