BY: Alexis Eichelberger

The world has fully turned upside down in 2020, and what we desperately need during these trying times is more angsty girl rock. Luckily, three of our favorite rocker chicks who came to prominence in the 90s are making huge comebacks this year and giving us the cure to any funks we’ve been in.

Fiona Apple

Fiona Apple has spent the past several years entrenched in politics through her music, marches and more. The Grammy winner released a special track for the Women’s March on Washington in 2017, protested Recording Academic president Neil Portnow’s sexist remarks in 2018, and pledged to donate a substantial sum to pro-refugee organizations in 2019. After months of teasing her next album without giving too many specifics, she finally released Fetch the Bolt Cutters in April. 

Fetch the Bolt Cutters is Apple’s first studio album in eight years and has received rave reviews from critics. It includes 13 tracks, all self-produced by Apple, and is rooted in what she calls a “percussion orchestra.” The album blends humor with heavy topics like bullying and sexual assault, and its allusions to confinement are as timely as ever. Fetch the Bolt Cutters debuted at number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Alanis Morissette

After a six-year hiatus from music, Alanis Morissette has a new album on the way. She had sporadically been releasing songs and discussing recording sessions in interviews for more than a year before making a concrete announcement in December 2019. Such Pretty Forks in the Road will be her first album released in eight years and was scheduled to drop May 1, 2020. Unfortunately, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the album has since been pushed back indefinitely.

Until Morissette releases her full album, we’ll be enjoying the tracks she’s released so far this year. She appeared on a track on Halsey’s third album Manic, which was released in January. Morissette has also dropped two singles from Such Pretty Forks in the Road, titled “Reasons I Drink” and “Smiling.”

Liz Phair

After spending summer 2016 supporting The Smashing Pumpkins on tour, Liz Phair took to Twitter to announce that she had been in the studio recording a double album with singer-songwriter Ryan Adams as the producer. Alas, those plans seemed to fall through. We haven’t gotten a new album from Phair since the release of Funstyle in 2010.

Although few details are known concerning Phair’s seventh album, we know this time it’s definitely on its way. The planned release of Soberish is sometime in summer 2020, though no specific date has been given. The album was produced by Brad Wood, the mastermind behind Phair’s first three albums. 

This summer, Phair is also slotted to tour the U.S. alongside Morissette. No cancellations have been announced, but many have speculated about the possibility of kicking off the tour on its originally scheduled date of May 21.