No One's Gotten a Pitchfork '10' Since Kanye in 2010. Until Now

Fiona Apple has been mostly out of the public eye for eight years, but the reclusive artist just came back with a big bang. So big, in fact, that Pitchfork felt compelled to give her new album, Fetch the Bolt Cutters, a perfect score—its first in nearly a decade, per Tone Deaf, which notes that only 11 other albums have received a "10" from the online music publication. The last release to receive such an honor from Pitchfork—which calls Apple's fifth studio album "a wild symphony of the everyday, an unyielding masterpiece"—was Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, in late 2010. "No music has ever sounded quite like it," reviewer Jenn Pelly writes of the 42-year-old Apple's latest effort, noting it "can threaten the status quo and it can be outrageously funny, often at once."

"Fetch the Bolt Cutters seems to almost completely turn the volume down on music history, while it cranks up raw, real life—handclaps, chants, and other makeshift percussion, in harmony with space, echoes, whispers, screams, breathing, jokes, so-called mistakes, and dog barks," Pelly writes. While Tone Deaf points out the debate over just how important a Pitchfork review actually is—some say the publication isn't as prestigious as it once was—it also notes "the fact remains that they're somewhat conservative with high praise, and for them to dish out a perfect score indicates that this is truly music worth hearing." Vulture, meanwhile, has compiled all of the best memes from fans expressing their reactions to the release of Apple's new album. Other reviews here, here, and here. (More Fiona Apple stories.)