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Untitled

Extraordinary Machine is the third album by American singer-songwriter Fiona Apple. Produced by Jon Brion, it was originally to be released by Epic Records in 2003. It was later delayed several times by the record label without explanation, leading to speculation that a dispute had arisen over its commercial appeal. The controversy surrounding the album and leaked recordings of the Jon Brion sessions were the subject of substantial press attention, as well as a highly publicised fan-led campaign to see the album officially released. In collaboration with producers Mike Elizondo and Brian Kehew, Apple re-recorded the album over 2004 and 2005. It was finally released in the United States on October 4 2005 (see 2005 in music), more than three years after the original recording sessions began.

Background and production

Following the tour of her 1999 album When the Pawn in 2000, Fiona Apple relocated to Los Angeles. "The first couple of years , I didn't have anything left in me to write about...I just figured if the songs came to me, they came to me, and if not, 'Oh, well, it's been fun'", she said. Apple then contemplated retiring from recording following harsh experiences with the highly competitive music industry over the years. In the spring of 2002, Apple and Jon Brion, her longtime friend and producer on When the Pawn, met for their weekly lunch meeting. "Please, please make another album," begged Brion, whose five-year relationship with comedienne Mary Lynn Rajskub had abruptly ended during the shooting of her film Punch-Drunk Love (2002), which Brion was scoring. After being forced to watch hours of footage of Rajskub while working on the film, Brion told Apple, "I need work that can save me." Apple agreed, and Brion went to Apple's label, Epic Records (a division of Sony Music), with strict stipulations (including no deadline), which the label eventually agreed to. A tentative November 2002 release date was then set.

After performing the then-untitled "Not About Love" at one of Brion's live concerts on February 22, Apple started studio work on the album the following June at Ocean Way (a studio once favoured by Frank Sinatra), where she played for Brion the first five songs she had written for the album. A recording of the unreleased Brad Mehldau collaboration "Blue Skies" was played from a sound booth at Cafe Largo—where Brion has a regular Friday-night gig, often joined by musical friends—later that month, and she debuted the song "A New Version of Me" (later renamed "Better", and then "Better Version of Me") live at Largo on August 2. Performed solo at the piano, one fan present described it as a "very fast, angry song". A reworked version of the song was performed at Largo on September 13 (Apple's twenty-fifth birthday), and Apple was joined by Brion on the celeste.

By late 2002, Apple, Brion, engineer Tom Biller, and percussionist Matt Chamberlain were at work in a wing of The Paramour, a mansion built in 1923 by silent film star Antonio Moreno, and the four used the building as a temporary residence from early 2003. Chamberlain said the experience of recording at the Paramour was "completely amazing", though production had been halted at one point whilst Apple received medical treatment for a dog bite on her arm. In April 2003, with the album half complete, Brion, Apple and Biller worked with assistant Steven Rhodes at Cello Studios, and a new release date of July 22 was announced. Brion and Apple then travelled to England later that month, to record strings and orchestration for the songs at Abbey Road Studios in London. The album was completed, from Brion's perspective, by May 2003, at which point the release was pushed back to September 30. However, by the fall of 2003, Apple and Brion were back in the recording studio adding finishing touches to the album, thus forcing back the release date to February 2004 (this was later changed to "early 2004").

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 Apple play it. Brion worked solidly on "Oh Well" for over a week, toying with basic guitar and drum tracks, before enlisting session drummer Jim Keltner for help, and later (at the Abbey Road sessions), asking violinist Eric Gorfain to compose an arrangement. Said Brion at Abbey Road, "I can't figure it out...Every album has a problem child. Maybe I want it to be a lawyer, when it wants to be a painter." The October 2003 issue of Rolling Stone depicted the album as being "all over the place" (a sentiment shared by Apple herself) and "definitely eclectic". The slow-paced track "Extraordinary" was referred to as "a Tin Pan Alley-esque blend of Tom Waits and Vaudeville", while the much more energetic "Better" was described as "an Outkast-like deluge of beats". In February 2004, an article in Spin magazine confirmed the title of the album, as well as a new song title, "Red, Red, Red", which had reportedly been inspired by a book about optical illusions.

Delays and leaked tracks

In late June 2004, the song "Extraordinary" – which had since been retitled as the title track – was leaked onto the internet. Soon after, a "rough mix" of "Better Version of Me" also leaked, with the following inscription listed as a comment in the properties of the MP3 file: "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". Josh Korr of the Tampa Bay Times wrote, "With a playfulness and penchant for odd sounds and instruments that channel the spirit of Brian Wilson's Smile, Apple's first songs since 1999 make Norah Jones, Joss Stone, Alicia Keys and other pretenders sound like American Idol rejects", while Entertainment Weekly called the songs "tantalizing, brazenly eccentric art pop...With Apple, the weirder, the better".

After months of no official news, an article about Jon Brion appeared in the October 8 2004 issue of Entertainment Weekly. It revealed that the album had been shelved since its completion in 2003 due to "the label not hearing any obvious singles". A representative for Epic Records stated that the album was to be released in February 2005, and had been delayed because Apple had decided to re-record some of the songs. Brion later clarified the status of the album in an interview with MTV News in January 2005: he said that Epic had desired songs in the vein of Apple's hit debut album Tidal (1996), but that when confronted by Machine, "it's just not the obvious easy sell to them." Apple herself was spotted by a reporter for USA Today at an Inauguration Day event that month, and when asked about when the album would be released, she said "You'll probably know before I do".

Shortly thereafter, members of the forum fionahaswings.com started a movement for an international, week-long mail campaign to flood Sony with support for Apple and for the release of the album. A website devoted to the campaign, freefiona.com, was created. In response to the campaign, Epic president Steve Barnett said: "It's our understanding that Fiona is still in the midst of recording her next album, and we at Epic Records join music lovers everywhere in eagerly anticipating her next release."

On February 26 2005, radio DJ Andrew Harms at 107.7 The End in Seattle received a bootleg copy of the album and began playing previously unheard tracks. Poor quality copies of the songs played on the radio, and before long, the tracks "Not About Love," "Get Him Back," and "Used to Love Him" were circulating on the internet. Of the situation, Harms said: "this is pretty special...with an established like Fiona, to have that happen is pretty crazy, so to stumble upon a full-length copy of the record was incredible", and also noted the positive response from listeners the songs had received. Brion had stated to MTV News the previous month, "Eventually will come out. People who do understand her and get what she's about are going to be thrilled. Is all this going make radio play it? Probably not. Does she care? No."

Blender magazine, in its May 2005 issue, included "Used to Love Him" on their list of "20 Songs You Should Download This Month". By early March 2005, radio recordings of "Waltz", "Please, Please, Please", "Oh, Sailor" and "Window" had surfaced; and later, better quality album cuts of "Oh Well" and "Red, Red, Red" had leaked online. Soon after, CD-quality versions of all the tracks were released through the BitTorrent website TorrentBox. They received a positive review from the New York Times, who described the album as "an oddball gem", adding "Had it been released, Extraordinary Machine would have been a fine counterbalance to a pop moment full of monolithic, self-righteous sincerity." Ed Bumgardner concurred, saying the album was "certainly a work of daring and sophistication, as wildly imaginative as it is entertaining", while Will Dukes said "Extraordinary Machine flaunts a quirky, cold-world cohesiveness that's as inviting as it is alienating." Nevertheless, despite the positive press, Epic and Apple declined to respond. The Recording Industry Association of America later contacted webmasters of sites hosting the files and asked them to be taken down, while the BitTorrent files subsequently vanished from the TorrentBox website.

Re-recording and release

Entertainment Weekly reported in its June 24 2005 issue that Apple was preparing work on a "second third" album with producer Brian Kehew of the electronica band Moog Cookbook, further fueling speculation among fans that the leaked Machine tracks had been shelved indefinitely. An unconfirmed July 2005 online chat, little noticed at the time, occurred with hip-hop musician ?uestlove on a website devoted to The Roots. He indicated the album was "not cancelled", was in production with Mike Elizondo, and would be a DualDisc, all of which were later confirmed as true. (?uestlove also said he played drums on the album, and in the March 2005 issue of Rolling Stone, he had said he may collaborate with Apple on her next album.)

File:ExtraordinaryCvr.jpg

Early album cover art.

After months of silence, Epic abruptly released a statement regarding the album's future on August 15 2005: Extraordinary Machine was to be officially released on October 4 2005, extensively reworked by co-producers Elizondo and Kehew. Elizondo had played bass on two When the Pawn tracks, but was better known for his production work with popular hip-hop artists such as 50 Cent, Dr. Dre and Eminem, and had been described as "a curious departure from Brion" by one reporter. He and Kehew worked at the Phantom Studio located behind Elizondo's Westlake Village home. They began to rework each song, track by track, building from Apple's piano and vocals, adding live drums with the help of Abe Laboriel Jr. and ?uestlove, and then synthesizer flourishes. Once the song frameworks had been completed, Apple returned to the studio and recorded final performances.

Of the eleven tracks previously leaked, two remained unchanged: "Extraordinary Machine" and "Waltz"; but nine were completely rearranged. One new song, "Parting Gift", was also included on the album; it is a solo vocal piece with piano that was recorded on the first take. According to Elizondo, most of the tracks sound "radically different", and even though he listened to Brion's version, "Everything was done from scratch". The New York Times suggested that Epic Records was not impressed with fan interest in the bootleg, and that Apple never considered the album finished; but by the time of the leak, she and Elizondo had been at work for some time (since April 2004). In an interview with Rolling Stone in September 2005, Apple explained her decision: "I gathered scraps for songs, and I ended up writing the rest on the way, a totally new approach for me... I didn't have enough time to live with the songs before recording them, so I really didn't know what I wanted."

Speaking with Billboard, Elizondo acknowledged that it was "a little disheartening" to be working with the knowledge that Brion's version was available to the public, but applauded Apple's "amazing core of fans" for their efforts to have the album released: "The way they interpreted it was, the label isn't putting out her record, so we're going to do it for her. That's very admirable." However, he defended Apple's decision to press on until the album reached the finished state that she had envisioned. He also expressed interest in joining Apple on a live tour to promote the album, saying "there are no performances set in stone... it will be a lot of fun."

On the day of the announcement, the label placed "O' Sailor" for streaming on Apple's MySpace site, and streamed both "O' Sailor" and "Parting Gift" on Apple's official website. The following day, both songs were made available as a bundle download at the online iTunes Music Store. Rob Rabiee of The Village Broadsheet called "Parting Gift" a "fine piano ballad...the song is well-executed", but referred to the new "O' Sailor" as a "flat, one-tone production", remarking that he felt that it had "a rushed feeling". On Apple's official site, behind-the-scenes footage and music videos were put up weekly in the run-up to the album's release. These videos were included on the DVD side of the album DualDisc, along with recordings of five of Apple's live performances at Largo. The entire album was made available for streaming at MySpace on September 27.

Despite rumors that the album had caused a rift between Brion and Apple, they performed together at Largo the Friday evening before Epic's announcement. Brion told MTV News, "She re-recorded a bunch of stuff, but whatever, that's her business. I remain a fan and think she's great, and she shouldn't have to meet too much resistance"; Elizondo, meanwhile, insisted Brion was "cool on all fronts" about the proposed re-recording. Brion, however, struck out at the bootleg version of the album: "It's wrong...I don't like those versions. It's stuff that doesn't reflect what we recorded, for the most part".

Reception

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The album received arguably the most positive reaction from critics Apple had ever received, and the album was placed as the number one album of the year at Slant Magazine, number four in Rolling Stone and number ten at Amazon.com. The album also earned considerable chart success, selling more than 300,000 copies in the U.S. alone by the end of 2005.

Chart positions

Chart (2005)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard 200	7
Canadian Albums Chart
UK Albums Chart
Australian ARIA Albums Chart

Tracks

Malcolm Abram noted, "Lyrically, Apple seems a bit dissolute about and possibly frightened by love on 'Red, Red, Red' and 'Used to Love Him'", overviews of Apple's emotions regarding failing relationships. Sal Cinquemani called the former "head-turning", and said: "You can hear her future in this one song alone, her sultry alto evoking Annie Lennox's more seasoned, lived-in voice." "Get Him Back", in which a scorned Apple contemplates revenge on "the one man who disappointed me", was characterised as a "bad-girl, 60s beach-party track" in the Okayplayer review, which compared the song with the theme tune to The Munsters.

Of "Not About Love", a song about a brutally volatile relationship, Will Duke wrote that it "sounds like an Aaron Copeland score to a postmodern remake of The Crucible, wherein Fiona is the bound-and-gagged damsel guilty of practicing a lopsided love"; Malcolm X. Abram called the song "the big turnoff for the bean counters". "Waltz" is a celebration of an existence devoid of love or music: "If you don't have a song to sing you're okay...If you don't have a date, celebrate". Jon Liu commented, "Apple wants you to glide along her surfaces now - not get inside her head."

Rolling Stone, in regard to the lyrics of "Please Please Please" ("give us something familiar"), said that they "seem to contrast the dictates of a record exec". Robert Wilonsky called Apple "the heartbroken girl as always out for vengeance", but added, "Or perhaps she's a prophet, singing not to a lover who betrayed her but the label that would do the same thing". Slant magazine quoted the song, reportedly "one of Machine's many Doors-by-way-of-Kurt-Weill tunes", in their scathing attack on Sony's alleged refusal to release the album, and said Apple "delivers an anguished, scratchy growl" on "Oh Well", a ballad about the aftermath of a traumatic incident.

The New York Times wrote, "in songs like 'Window' or 'Better Version of Me,' the carnival bounces and mock-Hollywood glitz put a cartoonish frame around her traumas, giving them a brand-new perspective." Jon Liu commended "Better Version of Me" for "its '80s-era (1880s, that is) instrumentation backing up such delightfully self-effacing observations as "I'm a frightened, fickle person / fighting crime, kickin', cursin' / what should I do?"", and said the album's title track "achieves the same visceral, carnal response in your average male listener that Lindsey Lohan's "Rumors" required a seemingly seven-figure-costing, awkwardly booty-shaking and body-rolling video to elicit...imagine Scarlett Johansson as a pop star and you'd get the idea."

Track listing

All tracks composed by Fiona Apple.

Official release
1. "Extraordinary Machine" – 3:44
2. "Get Him Back" – 5:26
3. "O' Sailor" – 5:37
4. "Better Version of Me" – 3:01
5. "Tymps (The Sick in the Head Song)" – 4:05
6. "Parting Gift" – 3:36
7. "Window" – 5:33
8. "Oh Well" – 3:42
9. "Please, Please, Please" – 3:35
10. "Red, Red, Red" – 4:08
11. "Not About Love" – 4:21
12. "Waltz (Better Than Fine)" – 3:46

Bootleg release
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