Extraordinary Machine
Encyclopedia
Extraordinary Machine is the third album by American singer-songwriter Fiona Apple
, released by Epic Records
in the United States on October 4, 2005. Produced by Jon Brion
, it was expected to be released in 2003 but was 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 publicized 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, and it was eventually released more than three years after the original recording sessions began. In 2009, Extraordinary Machine was named the 49th best album of the 2000s by Rolling Stone
magazine.
. "The first couple of years [after Pawn], 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. During her hiatus, Apple contemplated retiring from her recording career. In spring 2002 Apple and Jon Brion
, her longtime friend and producer on When the Pawn, met for their weekly lunch meeting. Brion's five-year relationship with comedienne Mary Lynn Rajskub
had abruptly ended during the shooting of the Paul Thomas Anderson
film Punch-Drunk Love
(2002), which Brion was scoring
. He reportedly "begged" Apple to make another album after being forced to watch hours of footage of Rajskub whilst working on the film: "I need work that can save me". Apple agreed, and Brion went to Apple's label, Epic Records
, 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 a Brion concert in February, Apple started studio work on the album the following June at Ocean Way Recording
, where she played for Brion the first five songs she had written for the album. She debuted the song "A New Version of Me" (later renamed "Better", and then "Better Version of Me") live at Club Largo
— where Brion has a regular Friday-night gig, often joined by musical friends — in August. By late 2002 Apple, Brion, engineer Tom Biller and percussionist Matt Chamberlain
were at work in a wing of the Paramour Mansion, which was built in 1923 by silent film star Antonio Moreno
; the four used the building as a temporary residence from early 2003, and Chamberlain said the experience of recording there was "completely amazing". With the album half complete in April 2003, Brion, Apple and Biller worked 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. But by Fall 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, and would later refer to it as the album's "problem child". The November 13, 2003 issue of Rolling Stone
reported that the album was "definitely eclectic" and quoted Apple admitting that the album was "all over the place". 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 and a new song, "Red, Red, Red", which had reportedly been inspired by a book about optical illusions.
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 material in the vein of Apple's debut album Tidal
(1996), but that when confronted by Machine, "it's just not the obvious easy sell to them". When USA Today
asked Apple herself about when the album would be released, she replied: "You'll probably know before I do".
Shortly thereafter, Fiona Apple fans organized a week-long mail campaign to flood Sony with support for Apple and for the release of the album. 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
began playing previously unheard tracks from a bootleg
copy of the album, and before long, poor quality copies of "Not About Love", "Get Him Back
" and "Used to Love Him" were circulating on the internet. Harms said of the situation: "this is pretty special ... with an established [artist] like Fiona, to have that happen is pretty crazy, so to stumble upon a full-length copy of the record was incredible"; he also noted the positive response from listeners the songs had received.
By early March 2005 radio recordings of "Waltz", "Please, Please, Please", "Oh, Sailor
" and "Window" had leaked online; those were followed by better quality album cuts of "Oh Well" and "Red, Red, Red". 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." According to the file-sharing tracking website BigChampagne in March, 46,759 people were sharing the leaked tracks on major P2P
networks. The RIAA
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.
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 The Moog Cookbook
, further fueling speculation amongst fans that the leaked Machine tracks had been shelved indefinitely. A July 2005 online chat, little noticed at the time, occurred with hip hop
musician Questlove on a website devoted to The Roots
. He said the album was "not cancelled", was in co-production with Mike Elizondo
, and would be a DualDisc
, all of which was later confirmed as true. (Questlove 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.)
After months of silence, Epic 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 one reporter had described him as "a curious departure from Brion" because of his more well-known production work with popular hip hop artists such as 50 Cent
, Dr. Dre
and Eminem
. He and Kehew worked at the Phantom Studio located behind Elizondo's Westlake Village
home, reworking each song; track by track they built from Apple's piano and vocals, added live drum
s with the help of Abe Laboriel Jr.
and Questlove, and then instrumental 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. Elizondo said he felt that most of the tracks sound "radically different", and that 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...[but] 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. On the day of the announcement, the label placed "O' Sailor" for streaming
on Apple's MySpace
site (the entire album was made available for streaming on September 27), and streamed both "O' Sailor" and "Parting Gift" on Apple's official website. Additionally, exclusive video material was put up weekly in the run-up to the album's release and most of which was later included on the DVD side of the album DualDisc, along with recordings of five of Apple's live performances at Largo.
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"; meanwhile, Elizondo insisted Brion was "cool on all fronts" about the proposed re-recording. However, Brion struck out at the bootleg version of the album: "It's wrong...I don't like those [leaked] versions. It's stuff that doesn't reflect what we recorded, for the most part". In late 2005 MTV News reported that Brion and Apple may collaborate again to complete the original recording sessions for Extraordinary Machine and release it officially in the near future. Apple said "I really think it would be cool to compare [the two versions]."
magazine described it as "a rudderless piece of work" and "a bitterly disappointing listen", while the website Pitchfork Media
(which placed the leaked version of the album at number forty-six on their "Top 50 Albums of 2005" list) wrote, "The shame of it all is that Apple, after six years of silence, could've made a more definitive, progressive statement rather than something familiar and similar — and we've got the bootlegs to prove it". Extraordinary Machine was nominated for the 2006 Grammy Award
for "Best Pop Vocal Album
", losing to Kelly Clarkson
's Breakaway (see Grammy Awards of 2006
).
During mid-August 2005 and ahead of the album's release in October, both "O' Sailor" and "Parting Gift" were made available as a bundle download at the online iTunes
Music Store. While "O' Sailor" was released separately at other digital music stores, video
promotion for "Parting Gift" began later that month. Extraordinary Machine debuted at number seven on the U.S. Billboard 200
chart with 94,000 copies sold in its first week of release, making it Apple's first top ten album; however, it fell out of the top ten in its second week with a sales decline of almost fifty percent. The video for "O' Sailor" began to receive television airplay in November, and the following January the "Not About Love" video made its internet premiere; early the next month, "Get Him Back" was released to radio stations. None of the singles attracted substantial airplay or digital downloads, and consequently they did not appear on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100
or Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks
chart.
As of April 19 the album had sold 462,000 copies in the U.S. according to Nielsen SoundScan
, which is below the sales of both Tidal (which sold 2.7 million copies) and When the Pawn (which sold 920,000). Prior to receiving a gold certification from the RIAA
in January 2006 for shipments of 500,000 copies, it was nominated for the New Pantheon award, which honours "left of centre" albums that shipped less than 500,000 copies in the U.S. between July 2004 and October 2005. Apple went on a three-week U.S. tour from November 22 to December 11 to promote the album, and from January 25 to March 5, 2006 she supported British band Coldplay
on the first half of their North American X&Y
tour. Apple also appeared on her own headlining summer tour from April 10, 2006 to October 29, 2006, with Damien Rice
and Davíd Garza
as her supporting acts for the thirty-five shows.
Fiona Apple
Fiona Apple McAfee Maggart is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. Apple met international acclaim for her 1996 debut album, Tidal, which was a critical and commercial success...
, released by Epic Records
Epic Records
Epic Records is an American record label, owned by Sony Music Entertainment. Though it was originally conceived as a jazz imprint, it has since expanded to represent various genres. L.A...
in the United States on October 4, 2005. Produced by Jon Brion
Jon Brion
Jon Brion is an American rock and pop multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, composer and record producer.-Early life:...
, it was expected to be released in 2003 but was 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 publicized fan-led campaign to see the album officially released. In collaboration with producers Mike Elizondo
Mike Elizondo
Michael "Mike" Elizondo is a well-known songwriter, bassist, keyboardist, and hip hop music producer.-Musical career:Mike Elizondo is especially known for his collaborations with internationally successful producer Dr. Dre and rapper Eminem. He has played the bass for many of Dr...
and Brian Kehew
Brian Kehew
Brian Kehew is a Los Angeles-based musician and music producer. He is a member the The Moog Cookbook and co-author of the Recording The Beatles book, an in-depth look at the Beatles' studio approach...
, Apple re-recorded the album over 2004 and 2005, and it was eventually released more than three years after the original recording sessions began. In 2009, Extraordinary Machine was named the 49th best album of the 2000s by Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine.
Background and production
After completing a concert tour in support of her second album When the Pawn... (1999) in 2000, Fiona Apple relocated to Los AngelesLos Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
. "The first couple of years [after Pawn], 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. During her hiatus, Apple contemplated retiring from her recording career. In spring 2002 Apple and Jon Brion
Jon Brion
Jon Brion is an American rock and pop multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, composer and record producer.-Early life:...
, her longtime friend and producer on When the Pawn, met for their weekly lunch meeting. Brion's five-year relationship with comedienne Mary Lynn Rajskub
Mary Lynn Rajskub
Mary Lynn Rajskub is an American actress and comedian, best known for her leading role as Chloe O'Brian on the Fox action-thriller 24.-Early life:...
had abruptly ended during the shooting of the Paul Thomas Anderson
Paul Thomas Anderson
Paul Thomas Anderson is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He has written and directed five feature films: Hard Eight , Boogie Nights , Magnolia , Punch-Drunk Love and There Will Be Blood...
film Punch-Drunk Love
Punch-Drunk Love
Punch-Drunk Love is a 2002 romantic comedy-drama written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, starring Adam Sandler and Emily Watson. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Luis Guzmán also appear....
(2002), which Brion was scoring
Film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
. He reportedly "begged" Apple to make another album after being forced to watch hours of footage of Rajskub whilst working on the film: "I need work that can save me". Apple agreed, and Brion went to Apple's label, Epic Records
Epic Records
Epic Records is an American record label, owned by Sony Music Entertainment. Though it was originally conceived as a jazz imprint, it has since expanded to represent various genres. L.A...
, 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
Not About Love
"Not About Love" is a song written by American singer-songwriter Fiona Apple and produced by Mike Elizondo and Brian Kehew for her third album Extraordinary Machine...
" at a Brion concert in February, Apple started studio work on the album the following June at Ocean Way Recording
Ocean Way Recording
Ocean Way Recording is the name of a series of recording studios in Hollywood, California and Nashville, Tennessee. Ocean Way Studios is well known in the recording industry due to the award-winning albums that were produced there....
, where she played for Brion the first five songs she had written for the album. She debuted the song "A New Version of Me" (later renamed "Better", and then "Better Version of Me") live at Club Largo
Largo (nightclub)
Largo is a nightclub and cabaret in Los Angeles, CA, known informally as Café Largo or Club Largo, known for its retinue of musical and comedic performers and for the Friday night "residency" of singer-songwriter Jon Brion, which has made the club a must-visit for fans and professional...
— where Brion has a regular Friday-night gig, often joined by musical friends — in August. By late 2002 Apple, Brion, engineer Tom Biller and percussionist Matt Chamberlain
Matt Chamberlain
Matthew Chamberlain is an American drummer, producer and sound engineer. He is currently based in Los Angeles, California.-Early life:...
were at work in a wing of the Paramour Mansion, which was built in 1923 by silent film star Antonio Moreno
Antonio Moreno
Antonio "Tony" Moreno was a notable Spanish-born American actor and film director of the silent film era and through the 1950s.- Biography :...
; the four used the building as a temporary residence from early 2003, and Chamberlain said the experience of recording there was "completely amazing". With the album half complete in April 2003, Brion, Apple and Biller worked 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
Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios is a recording studio located at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music company EMI, its present owner...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. The album was completed from Brion's perspective by May 2003, at which point the release was pushed back to September 30. But by Fall 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, and would later refer to it as the album's "problem child". The November 13, 2003 issue of Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
reported that the album was "definitely eclectic" and quoted Apple admitting that the album was "all over the place". The slow-paced track "Extraordinary" was referred to as "a Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century...
-esque blend of Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
and Vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
", while the much more energetic "Better" was described as "an OutKast
OutKast
Outkast is an American hip hop duo based in East Point, Georgia, consisting of Atlanta native André "André 3000" Benjamin and Savannah, Georgia-born Antwan "Big Boi" Patton. They were originally known as Two Shades Deep but later changed the group's name to OutKast...
-like deluge of beats". In February 2004 an article in Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
magazine confirmed the title of the album and a new song, "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 MP3MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
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
Brian Wilson
Brian Douglas Wilson is an American musician, best known as the leader and chief songwriter of the group The Beach Boys. Within the band, Wilson played bass and keyboards, also providing part-time lead vocals and, more often, backing vocals, harmonizing in falsetto with the group...
's Smile
Smile (Brian Wilson album)
Smile, sometimes typeset with the idiosyncratic partial capitalization SMiLE, or referred to as Brian Wilson Presents Smile is a solo album by Brian Wilson, with lyrics by Van Dyke Parks released on September 28, 2004 on CD and two-disc vinyl LP...
, Apple's first songs since 1999 make Norah Jones
Norah Jones
Norah Jones is an American singer-songwriter and occasional actress.In 2002, she launched her solo music career with the release of the commercially successful and critically acclaimed album Come Away With Me, which was certified a diamond album in 2002, selling over 20 million copies...
, Joss Stone
Joss Stone
Jocelyn Eve Stoker , better known by her stage name Joss Stone, is an English soul singer-songwriter and actress. Stone rose to fame in late 2003 with her multi-platinum debut album, The Soul Sessions, which made the 2004 Mercury Prize shortlist...
, Alicia Keys
Alicia Keys
Alicia Augello Cook , better known by her stage name Alicia Keys, is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and occasional actress. She was raised by a single mother in the Hell's Kitchen area of Manhattan in New York City. At age seven, Keys began playing the piano...
and other pretenders sound like American Idol
American Idol
American Idol, titled American Idol: The Search for a Superstar for the first season, is a reality television singing competition created by Simon Fuller and produced by FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment...
rejects", while Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
called the songs "tantalizing, brazenly eccentric art pop ... With Apple, the weirder, the better".
Shelved
In politics, the term can be used for policy drafts, that have never been officially brought into legislation.In the film industry, a film is considered shelved if it is not released for public viewing after filming has started, or even completed....
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
MTV News
MTV News is the news division of MTV, one of the first and most popular music television network in the U.S., as well as some of MTV's related channels around the world. MTV News began in the late 1980s with the program The Week In Rock, hosted by Kurt Loder, the first official MTV News correspondent...
in January 2005: he said that Epic had desired material in the vein of Apple's debut album Tidal
Tidal (album)
Tidal is the first album by American singer-songwriter Fiona Apple, released by Work Records and distributed by Epic Records in the United States on July 23, 1996 . It peaked at number 15 on the U.S. Billboard 200 and up to October 2005 had sold 2.7 million copies in the U.S. according to Nielsen...
(1996), but that when confronted by Machine, "it's just not the obvious easy sell to them". When USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
asked Apple herself about when the album would be released, she replied: "You'll probably know before I do".
Shortly thereafter, Fiona Apple fans organized a week-long mail campaign to flood Sony with support for Apple and for the release of the album. 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
Andrew harms
Andrew Harms better known as harms, is a radio personality on 107.7 The End in Seattle.- Career :While getting a business degree at the University of Washington, Andrew Harms started working at 107.7 The End as a modulator...
at 107.7 The End in Seattle
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
began playing previously unheard tracks from a bootleg
Bootleg recording
A bootleg recording is an audio or video recording of a performance that was not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority. The process of making and distributing such recordings is known as bootlegging...
copy of the album, and before long, poor quality copies of "Not About Love", "Get Him Back
Get Him Back
"Get Him Back" is a song written by American singer Fiona Apple and produced by Mike Elizondo and Brian Kehew for her third album Extraordinary Machine...
" and "Used to Love Him" were circulating on the internet. Harms said of the situation: "this is pretty special ... with an established [artist] like Fiona, to have that happen is pretty crazy, so to stumble upon a full-length copy of the record was incredible"; he also noted the positive response from listeners the songs had received.
By early March 2005 radio recordings of "Waltz", "Please, Please, Please", "Oh, Sailor
O' Sailor
"O' Sailor" is a song written by American singer Fiona Apple and recorded for her third album Extraordinary Machine . On August 15, 2005 , ahead of the album's release in early October, Epic Records made available for streaming both "Parting Gift" and "O' Sailor" on Apple's...
" and "Window" had leaked online; those were followed by better quality album cuts of "Oh Well" and "Red, Red, Red". 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." According to the file-sharing tracking website BigChampagne in March, 46,759 people were sharing the leaked tracks on major P2P
Peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads among peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application...
networks. The RIAA
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States...
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
Brian Kehew
Brian Kehew is a Los Angeles-based musician and music producer. He is a member the The Moog Cookbook and co-author of the Recording The Beatles book, an in-depth look at the Beatles' studio approach...
of the electronica
Electronica
Electronica includes a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed for a wide range of uses, including foreground listening, some forms of dancing, and background music for other activities; however, unlike electronic dance music, it is not specifically made for dancing...
band The Moog Cookbook
The Moog Cookbook
The Moog Cookbook is the name of an electronica band made up of Brian Kehew and Roger Joseph Manning Jr. as a parody/tribute to the novelty "Moog records" of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The duo performs exclusively on analog synthesizers, especially Moog synthesizers...
, further fueling speculation amongst fans that the leaked Machine tracks had been shelved indefinitely. A July 2005 online chat, little noticed at the time, occurred with hip hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
musician Questlove on a website devoted to The Roots
The Roots
The Roots is an American hip hop/neo soul band formed in 1987 by Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter and Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are famed for beginning with a jazzy, eclectic approach to hip hop which still includes live instrumentals...
. He said the album was "not cancelled", was in co-production with Mike Elizondo
Mike Elizondo
Michael "Mike" Elizondo is a well-known songwriter, bassist, keyboardist, and hip hop music producer.-Musical career:Mike Elizondo is especially known for his collaborations with internationally successful producer Dr. Dre and rapper Eminem. He has played the bass for many of Dr...
, and would be a DualDisc
DualDisc
DualDisc was a type of double-sided optical disc product developed by a group of record companies including EMI Music, Universal Music Group, Sony/BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and 5.1 Entertainment Group and later under the aegis of the Recording Industry Association of America...
, all of which was later confirmed as true. (Questlove 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.)
After months of silence, Epic 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
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
on two When the Pawn tracks, but one reporter had described him as "a curious departure from Brion" because of his more well-known production work with popular hip hop artists such as 50 Cent
50 Cent
Curtis James Jackson III , better known by his stage name 50 Cent, is an American rapper, entrepreneur, investor, record producer, and actor. He rose to fame with the release of his albums Get Rich or Die Tryin and The Massacre . Get Rich or Die Tryin has been certified eight times platinum by...
, Dr. Dre
Dr. Dre
Andre Romelle Young , primarily known by his stage name Dr. Dre, is an American record producer, rapper, record executive, entrepreneur, and occasional actor. He is the founder and current CEO of Aftermath Entertainment and a former co-owner and artist of Death Row Records...
and Eminem
Eminem
Marshall Bruce Mathers III , better known by his stage name Eminem or his alter ego Slim Shady, is an American rapper, record producer, songwriter and actor. Eminem's popularity brought his group project, D12, to mainstream recognition...
. He and Kehew worked at the Phantom Studio located behind Elizondo's Westlake Village
Westlake Village, California
Westlake Village is a planned community that straddles the Los Angeles and Ventura county line. The eastern portion is the incorporated city Westlake Village, located on the western edge of Los Angeles County, California. The city, located in the region known as the Conejo Valley, encompasses half...
home, reworking each song; track by track they built from Apple's piano and vocals, added live drum
Drum
The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...
s with the help of Abe Laboriel Jr.
Abe Laboriel Jr.
Abe Laboriel Jr. is an American session drummer. He is the son of Mexican bassist Abraham Laboriel, Sr. and brother of producer, songwriter, and film composer Mateo Laboriel....
and Questlove, and then instrumental 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
Parting Gift
"Parting Gift" is a song written by American singer Fiona Apple and recorded for her third album Extraordinary Machine . It was produced by Mike Elizondo and Brian Kehew and is the only song from Extraordinary Machine not to have been originally recorded during the Jon Brion-produced sessions....
", was also included on the album; it is a solo vocal piece with piano that was recorded on the first take. Elizondo said he felt that most of the tracks sound "radically different", and that 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...[but] 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. On the day of the announcement, the label placed "O' Sailor" for streaming
Streaming media
Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider.The term "presented" is used in this article in a general sense that includes audio or video playback. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather...
on Apple's MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
site (the entire album was made available for streaming on September 27), and streamed both "O' Sailor" and "Parting Gift" on Apple's official website. Additionally, exclusive video material was put up weekly in the run-up to the album's release and most of which was later included on the DVD side of the album DualDisc, along with recordings of five of Apple's live performances at Largo.
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"; meanwhile, Elizondo insisted Brion was "cool on all fronts" about the proposed re-recording. However, Brion struck out at the bootleg version of the album: "It's wrong...I don't like those [leaked] versions. It's stuff that doesn't reflect what we recorded, for the most part". In late 2005 MTV News reported that Brion and Apple may collaborate again to complete the original recording sessions for Extraordinary Machine and release it officially in the near future. Apple said "I really think it would be cool to compare [the two versions]."
Reception and promotion
The official version of Extraordinary Machine attracted universal acclaim according to metacritic upon its release: it was placed number one on year-end top albums lists in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times and Slant magazine, within the top five in The Village Voice, Blender magazine and Rolling Stone, and in the top ten in the Los Angeles Times and Spin magazine. A minority of publications commented less favourably about the album; StylusStylus Magazine
Stylus Magazine was an online music and film magazine launched in 2002. It featured long-form music journalism, four daily music reviews, movie reviews, a number of different podcasts, an MP3 blog, and a text blog....
magazine described it as "a rudderless piece of work" and "a bitterly disappointing listen", while the website Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...
(which placed the leaked version of the album at number forty-six on their "Top 50 Albums of 2005" list) wrote, "The shame of it all is that Apple, after six years of silence, could've made a more definitive, progressive statement rather than something familiar and similar — and we've got the bootlegs to prove it". Extraordinary Machine was nominated for the 2006 Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
for "Best Pop Vocal Album
Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album
The Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album is an honor presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for quality pop music albums...
", losing to Kelly Clarkson
Kelly Clarkson
Kelly Brianne Clarkson is an American pop rock singer-songwriter and actress. Clarkson came into prominence after becoming the winner of the inaugural season of the television series American Idol in 2002 and would later become the runner-up in the television special World Idol in 2003.In 2003,...
's Breakaway (see Grammy Awards of 2006
Grammy Awards of 2006
The 48th Annual Grammy Awards took place on February 8, 2006 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. Irish rock band U2 were the big winners, winning five awards including Album of the Year. Mariah Carey, John Legend, and Kanye West each were nominated for eight awards and won three,...
).
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
Music Store. While "O' Sailor" was released separately at other digital music stores, video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
promotion for "Parting Gift" began later that month. Extraordinary Machine debuted at number seven on the U.S. Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
chart with 94,000 copies sold in its first week of release, making it Apple's first top ten album; however, it fell out of the top ten in its second week with a sales decline of almost fifty percent. The video for "O' Sailor" began to receive television airplay in November, and the following January the "Not About Love" video made its internet premiere; early the next month, "Get Him Back" was released to radio stations. None of the singles attracted substantial airplay or digital downloads, and consequently they did not appear on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
or Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks
Modern Rock Tracks
Alternative Songs is a music chart in the United States that has appeared in Billboard magazine since September 10, 1988. It lists the 40 most-played songs on modern rock radio stations, most of which are alternative rock songs...
chart.
As of April 19 the album had sold 462,000 copies in the U.S. according to Nielsen SoundScan
Nielsen SoundScan
Nielsen SoundScan is an information and sales tracking system created by Mike Fine and Mike Shalett. Soundscan is the official method of tracking sales of music and music video products throughout the United States and Canada...
, which is below the sales of both Tidal (which sold 2.7 million copies) and When the Pawn (which sold 920,000). Prior to receiving a gold certification from the RIAA
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States...
in January 2006 for shipments of 500,000 copies, it was nominated for the New Pantheon award, which honours "left of centre" albums that shipped less than 500,000 copies in the U.S. between July 2004 and October 2005. Apple went on a three-week U.S. tour from November 22 to December 11 to promote the album, and from January 25 to March 5, 2006 she supported British band Coldplay
Coldplay
Coldplay are a British alternative rock band formed in 1996 by lead vocalist Chris Martin and lead guitarist Jonny Buckland at University College London. After they formed Pectoralz, Guy Berryman joined the group as a bassist and they changed their name to Starfish. Will Champion joined as a...
on the first half of their North American X&Y
X&Y
X&Y is the third studio album by English rock band Coldplay, released 6 June 2005 in the United Kingdom via the record label Parlophone. The album, which features influences of electronic music, was produced by the band and British record producer Danton Supple...
tour. Apple also appeared on her own headlining summer tour from April 10, 2006 to October 29, 2006, with Damien Rice
Damien Rice
Damien Rice is an Irish singer-songwriter, musician and record producer who plays guitar, piano, clarinet and percussion....
and Davíd Garza
Davíd Garza
Davíd Garza is an Austin-based, American singer-songwriter who infuses rock and pop with a Latin feel and whose vocal style draws comparisons to Freddie Mercury, Jeff Buckley, Donovan and Robert Plant.-Biography:...
as her supporting acts for the thirty-five shows.
Track listing
All songs written by Fiona Apple.Official release
|
Bootleg release
|
DVD
- Not About Love (video)
- Extraordinary Machine (live at Club Largo)
- River, Stay Away from My Door (live at Club Largo)
- Paper Bag (live at Club Largo)
- Fast As You Can (live at Club Largo)
- You Belong to Me (live at Club Largo)
- Parting Gift (live at the Jazz Factory)
Album
| Chart (2005) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Australian ARIA Albums Chart ARIA Charts The ARIA charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA commenced compiling its own charts in-house from the week ending 26 June... |
53 |
| French SNEP Syndicat National de l'Edition Phonographique The Syndicat national de l'édition phonographique is the inter-professional organization which protects the interests of the French record industry... Albums Chart |
61 |
| U.S. Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists... |
7 |
| U.S. Billboard Top Internet Albums | 3 |
| U.S. Billboard Top Digital Albums | 1 |
Personnel
Official release
|
Bootleg release
|
External links
- Press release from Epic Records — August 15, 2005.
- Extraordinary Machine radio — original version.
- Crawdaddy!Crawdaddy!Crawdaddy! was the first U.S. magazine of rock and roll music criticism. Created in 1966 by college student Paul Williams in response to the increasing sophistication and cultural influence of popular music, Crawdaddy! was self-described as "the first magazine to take rock and roll...
Ex Posto Facto consideration of Extraordinary Machine March 2008 - Lyrics
- University of Southern California's TrojanVision interview with Fiona Apple, fall 2003 — requires RealPlayerRealPlayerRealPlayer is a cross-platform media player by RealNetworks that plays a number of multimedia formats including MP3, MPEG-4, QuickTime, Windows Media, and multiple versions of proprietary RealAudio and RealVideo formats.-History:...
. - TheWayThingsAre — news index.
- Reviews of the bootleg release:
- Jon Pareles, New York Times (positive) April 3, 2005 link
- Sal Cinquemani, Slant magazine (4.5/5) link
- Ed Bumgardner, Relish Now! (positive) March 31, 2005 link
- Rob Mitchum, Pitchfork MediaPitchfork MediaPitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...
(7.8/10) October 5, 2005 link - Malcolm X. Abram, Akron Beacon JournalAkron Beacon JournalThe Akron Beacon Journal is a four-time Pulitzer Prize-winning morning newspaper in Akron, Ohio, United States, and published by Black Press Ltd.. It is the sole daily newspaper in Akron and is distributed throughout Northeast Ohio. The paper places a strong emphasis on local news and business...
(positive) April 3, 2005 link - Robert Wilonsky, Dallas ObserverDallas ObserverThe Dallas Observer is a free alternative weekly newspaper distributed around the Dallas, Texas . At its inception, it was conceived as a weekly local arts and cinema review publication, with the credo "Advocate for Excellence in the Arts" on the cover. For a time during the early years, the paper...
(positive) April 14, 2005 link - Jon Liu, The Harvard IndependentThe Harvard IndependentThe Harvard Independent is a weekly newspaper produced by undergraduate students at Harvard University. It is one of many hard-news media outlets on the Harvard undergraduate campus.-Origin and history:...
(positive) April 14, 2005 link - Salon.comSalon.comSalon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
(mixed) March 23, 2005 link - Brian Hiatt, Rolling StoneRolling StoneRolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
(3.5/5) May, 2005 (p. 79) link - OkayplayerOkayplayerOkayplayer.com is an online hip-hop and alternative music website and community, described by Rolling Stone as a "tastemaker" and "an antidote to dull promotional Web sites used by most artists". The group was co-founded by The Roots' drummer Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson as a loose musical...
(4/5) link