Fiona Apple covers Sharon Van Etten’s 'Love More' for Van Etten's 'Ten' anniversary reissue, adding heartbeat drums and subtle piano to the song; Low cover Bob Dylan’s 'Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door' for the Uncut compilation 'Dylan Revisited'; The Black Keys share their version of 'Crawling Kingsnake' by Big Joe Williams, from their album of Mississippi hill country blues standards 'Delta Kream', out May 14.

Apart from the biggest categories, there were some noticeable wins at the Grammys last night. Kaytranada won Best Dance/Electronic Album with 'Bubba', Fiona Apple won Best Rock Performance with 'Shameika' as well as Best Alternative Music Album with 'Fetch the Bolt Cutters', Brittany Howard won Best Rock Song with 'Stay High', The Strokes won Best Rock Album with 'The New Abnormal', Thundercat won Best Progressive R&B Album with 'It Is What It Is', Gillian Welch & David Rawlings won Best Folk Album with 'All The Good Times', Burna Boy won Best Global Music Album with 'Twice As Tall', Body Count won Best Metal Performance with 'Bum-Rush', even Kanye West won, in Best Contemporary Christian Music Album category with 'Jesus is King', tying Jay-Z as the most ever Grammy-awarded among hip-hop artists with 22 awards.

'Fetch the Bolt Cutters' is one of the most critically acclaimed albums this year, but it wasn't so assuring for Fiona Apple when she was making it, as she's told the Guardian: "I started everything over once and then over again feeling like it wasn’t going in the right direction. There were times when I felt, I love all the work that we’ve been doing and I don’t regret any of the time that we spent, but maybe I just don’t wanna deal with this. Maybe I’m in a good place to call it quits and go live a different kind of life. But then it started feeling right. I didn’t have any idea that it was gonna be loved so much". While making it she said she had provided herself with "the right environment and getting to a place where – it sounds strange to say – I could believe myself as I was performing". Being so validated like herself with this album isn't that great either: "I’m happy that I feel respected in a way that I wasn’t before but it also messes with your idea of yourself... I don’t know how we get out of letting other people tell us who we are".

A heart-warming story in the Pitchfork about Fiona Apple and her long-lost school friend Shameika Stepney, a theme in Apple's great album 'Fetch the Bolt-Cutters' with a reoccurring line "Shameika said I have potential". It goes back to when Apple was in third grade and trying to make friends with other children in her school, who in return rejected her. Shameika, then a fourth-grader, was passing by, saw something going on, and leaned down and said "Hey, why do you care about them? You have potential". Two women reunited this year for Shameika's song 'Shameika Said' featuring Fiona Apple.

Fiona Apple has narrated a new short film about how to safely document and record U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests, Vulture reports. Apple said she "felt really lucky to be able to read it aloud and learn it. It’s such valuable information".

"I moved into this house in 2000, and I’ve always felt like [it] doesn’t want me to go anywhere" - Fiona Apple described to the Vulture how she recorded her new album 'Fetch the Bolt Cutters' in her home-studio. She continued - "So I’m like, 'All right, I’m going to give you what you want, house. I know you deserve to be the record. I’m going to make you the record'. This is where I feel comfortable. My boyfriend at the time, Jamie, really pushed for me to get it set up here so I could record by myself. Once he pushed for that to happen and Amy taught me how to do GarageBand, it was like the universe opened up". She also described how things changed after she withdrew from drugs she’d been prescribed to deal with depression, and after getting sober - "It’s not a constant feeling, and it’s gotten a lot better, again, since I quit drinking - so much better, so much less anxiety".

Fiona Apple‘s highly anticipated new album 'Fetch the Bolt Cutters' came out at midnight, and Pitchfork gave it a rare perfect 10, their first since Kanye West’s 'My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy' ten years ago. Why? - it's "unbound, a wild symphony of the everyday" - it features handclaps, chants, echoes, whispers, screams, breathing, jokes, and at least five dogs - "an unyielding masterpiece. No music has ever sounded quite like it". Guardian, similarly, gave it five of five stars (not so rare in their case) - call it "astonishing; as if she has returned to reinvent sound... a sudden glorious eruption". Independent, five of five stars also - "the melodies are wonderful. The lyrics, too – conversational yet precise". Consequence of Sound (an "A", this is becoming a pattern) - says it's "prescient, mordant, and unyielding judgement day for the wicked world around us and a wild birth of urgent, unconventional sound all wrapped into one".

Brooklyn Vegan combed through the 2010s as well and came up with 141 best albums of the last ten years (it was a shame to kick out Leonard Cohen, right?!? :_) ). The first ten are: 10. The National – 'Trouble Will Find Me Read More' 9. PJ Harvey – 'Let England Shake' 8. Beyonce […]

American singer Fiona Apple will donate all of the 2019 and 2020 earnings from TV and movie placements of her hit single 'Criminal' to the While They Wait, a fund that helps refugees secure life necessities, immigration fees, and legal assistance, CNN reports. “After months and months of reading the news about how my country […]

Laurel Canyon was a centre of counterculture activity in the mid-late 1960s and early 1970s - it was home to Frank Zappa, Jim Morrison, The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, The Eagles, Love, Neil Young, The Monkees - and it is the subject of new documentary 'Echo in the Canyon'. It features in-depth interviews with many of […]