Misplaced Pages

Extraordinary Machine

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Weebot (talk | contribs) at 02:24, 30 June 2005. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 02:24, 30 June 2005 by Weebot (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Untitled

Extraordinary Machine is the third album by American singer/songwriter Fiona Apple. As of January 2025, the album is unreleased.

After harsh experiences with the highly competitive music industry, Fiona Apple contemplated retiring from recording. In the spring of 2002, her former producer Jon Brion and Apple met for their weekly lunch. "Please, please make another album," begged Brion, who had recently ended a five-year relationship with the comedian Mary Lynn Rajskub. "I need work that can save me." Apple agreed, and Brion went to Apple's label, Sony Music, with strict stipulations, which the label eventually agreed to.

Fiona started recording the album around July 2002. She debuted the song "Better Version Of Me" live at Club Largo on August 2nd, 2002; it was unpredictable and fast-paced, and performed solo at the piano. A reworked version of the song was performed once again at Club Largo on September 18, 2002, where Fiona was joined by Jon Brion on the celeste.

By late 2002 the album was half-done, and Apple, Brion, engineer Tom Biller, and percussionist Matt Chamberlain were living and recording at The Paramour, a mansion built in 1923 by silent film star Antonio Moreno. A month later, Fiona and Jon travelled to England to record strings and orchestration for the songs at Abbey Road Studios in London. By May 2003, the album was completed.

A release date of September 30, 2003 was set by Sony, but eventually it was pushed back to February 2004, then "early 2004", and later, February 2005.

Little by little, small details about the songs were revealed through newspaper and magazine articles. A New York Times article on Jon Brion in August 2003 revealed the title of another song on the album - "Oh Well" - with Brion stating that he cried the first time he heard Fiona play it. The October 2003 edition of Rolling Stone depicted the album as "all over the place" and "definitely eclectic". The track "Extraordinary Machine" was described as "a Tin Pan Alley-esque blend of Tom Waits and Vaudeville" and "Better Version Of Me" was referred to as "an Outkast-like deluge of beats". A February 2004 Spin article confirms a new song title, "Red, Red, Red", which was said to be inspired by a book about optical illusions.

In late June, the title track of "Extraordinary Machine" mysteriously leaked onto the internet. Soon after, a "rough mix" of "Better Version Of Me" also leaked with the following inscription: "It has some good bits, but I still think we never have topped the second version. Ideally, we would combine some of this with that, but obviously we can't. Sigh. Ask the others what they think - I know she was partial to both of them, particularly the second".

After months of no official news, an article on Jon Brion appeared in the October 2004 issue of Entertainment Weekly. It revealed that the album had been shelved since its completion in May 2003 "due to the label not hearing any obvious singles".

Shortly thereafter, fan and musician Dave Muscato and other members of the forum fionahaswings.com started a movement for an international, week-long mail campaign to flood Sony with support for Fiona and the release of the album. A web site devoted to the campaign, freefiona.com, was also created.

On February 26, 2005, radio DJ Harms at 107.7 The End in Seattle received a bootleg copy of the album and began playing previously unheard tracks. Poor quality recordings of the songs played on the radio - "Not About Love," "Get Him Back," and "Used To Love Him" - began circulating on the internet. By early March 2005, radio recordings of "Waltz", "Please, Please, Please", "Oh Sailor", "Window" and later, good quality album cuts of "Oh, Well and "Red, Red, Red" had leaked. They are available online. Soon after CD-quality versions were released and received a positive review in the New York Times.

Track listing

All songs written by Fiona Apple. Tracklisting and times are subject to change.

  1. "Not About Love" - 3:46
  2. "Red, Red, Red" - 3:30
  3. "Get Him Back" - 4:26
  4. "Better Version Of Me" - 3:22
  5. "Oh, Well" - 3:51
  6. "Oh, Sailor" - 6:25
  7. "Used To Love Him" - 3:36
  8. "Window" - 4:28
  9. "Waltz" - 3:44
  10. "Extraordinary Machine" - 3:41
  11. "Please, Please, Please" - 3:50

Personnel

Production

References

Categories: