Fiona Apple - Fiona Apple: Extraordinary Machine
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CD Details
Artist: Fiona AppleEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
Format: Dual Disc
CD Release Date: 2005-10-04
Music Label: Sony
Soundtracks:
- Extraordinary Machine
- Get Him Back
- O' Sailor
- Better Version Of Me
- Tymps (The Sick In The Head Song)
- Parting Gift
- Window
- Oh Well
- Please Please Please
- Red Red Red
- Not About Love
- Waltz (Better Than Fine)
Music reviews of Fiona Apple: Extraordinary Machine
Music Review: A Little Less Extraordinary Than It Was Pre-Release
Rating: 4 Stars
Fiona Apple fans have been waiting almost six years, since 1999's "When the Pawn..." to get their hands on her new song. In 2003, Rolling Stone ran an article about the upcoming, then-untitled album that Fiona'd been working on, but another year passed and there was no word on whether we'd ever here our favorite siren sing again. Then, there was an internet leak as someone from Sony put the "unfinished" album online, complete with lyrics and tentitive track listing, and fans snatched it up. I know, I was one of them. For six months while I lived in the UK, I listened to the pre-release Extraordinary Machine, learning the words as best I could, falling in love with songs like "Not About Love," "Used to Love Him" and "Better Version of Me" while Sony executives argued that they couldn't hear a single on the album.
Then, finally, with less than a month of pre-launch publicity and almost no promotion, Extraordinary Machine was released. A new producer had come along and, rather heavy-handedly, remixed the songs I'd come to love, adding many special sound effects and liberally using a Wurlitzer where one is definitely not needed. If you put the tracks on random, I can still tell you which album the track is from, just based on the tonal quality, instruments used, and fullness of the track. New tracks are sparce and kind of empty or overly produced so they seem strange compared to the fullness of the downloaded tracks.
A track by track comparison, in the order the tracks appeared on the downloadable album:
"Not About Love"
Drums added and rhythm/pacing increased to increase the overall pacing of the song, but the harder chords have been softened so that, as with other songs on the album, her voice stands out against the accompaniment. Originally more in line with her "Tidal" songs, this seems to have been reworked, especially with the hard guitar added to the chorus, to give a new sound to an old-genre song. It's kind of the difference between Evanescence's "My Immortal" album track, which can be beautiful and haunting, and the single version with the additional instrumentals added, which seems like a ballad gone wrong. However, that works on that song, where as the strange reworking of Not About Love, especially on the hectic, manic bridge, seems much better suited for another song.
"Red. Red. Red"
Sound effects and fast pace made the original my least favorite track, seemed like a cut off of When the Pawn... There were a lot of distortions to voice and instruments, a synthesizer used liberally, and emotional strains of vocal effects made it an angry and strange song that rises to a pitch, falls back, then rises again. The new song is grandly slowed down, stripped of the fast pace synths and beat that made it seem strangely up-beat for the lyrics. Still, with no vocal or sound effects, it is haunting but plodding and doesn't reach the emotional pitch of it's intial version. Along with "Tymps" ( formerly "Used to Love Him") this is one of the most changed songs on the album. Much more plodding and slow, almost a ballad, I quite prefer the new version to the original.
"Get Him Back"
Additional instruments and mixing has damaged an originally brilliant song, which had benefited from brilliant shifts in tempo and a piano that changed with Fiona's slight vocal variations, making it a stronger, more empowered song. Now, the strange introduction and additional instruments, while filling out the sparce song, also over-emphasizes the once subtle tones and changes in vocals, not to mention the weird effects being used. Still, not an all together bad song, and fairly true to the original.
"Better Version of Me"
Yet another song that underwent a hard rewrite, the instrumental has almost been completely stripped down to piano and vocals, without the incredibly kickass introduction of the original. By the time the additional orchestration is put in, the music seems off, as though it was written for completely different vocals, even though the vocals themselves have been altered to fit with the strange, empty accompaniment behind them. The bridge of the song just seems completely mismatched. Where the original rose to a fevered pitch at "I will keep a deliberate pace" this plods along until it decides to rise up and catch up with "let the damned breeze dry my face" before dropping off all together, which sounds too hollow, to empty for the powerful, empowering lyrics.
"Oh Well"
No changes, leaves the song very full, even without the mixing, orchestration, and production values of the other songs. A strong but well-blended vocal track adds a nice emotional quality.
"Oh Sailor"
The first thing to notice about the new "O' Sailor" other than the missing "h" from the title, is the tempo has been greatly increased, speeding up a song that used to feel like it dragged on for far too long. The addition of drums also has added a fuller sound to it, and though it's still one of my least favorite songs on the album, the remixed single-version that appears on the album is a definite improvement, even if their seems to be a strange transition from verse to chorus.
"Tymps (Sick In The Head Song)" - formerly "Used To Love Him"
What is this? This is not the song I fell in love with! Before, when I'd listen to it, it was the kind of song you could imagine some 1940s or 50s era female singer giving to the troops at a USO show, the Andrews Sisters or Debbie Reynolds. Now it's just been stripped of it's full, rich melody and messed about with and mucked up. Why are you using a Wurlitzer again? Why!? Arrgggg! I can't even go into everything that was messed up with this song, but trust me, the original is brilliant and you should do everything in your power to track down the MP3s of it, if you can still find it.
"Window"
What the hell happened to this song? Is this what happens when a producer goes mixing-mad in the studio or when a frustrated artist punishes the company that shelved her album for two years? I can't even explain, except that almost non-existant instrumentals on the verses used to match the piano on the chorus, without the extraneous synth, and if you just listen to the chorus of Window, you'll understand why this is a great improvement. Of course, even the vocals have been changed on this track, with changes in tempo, melody, and emotion. I greatly prefer the original to this mashup of over-produced, over-mixed bizarreness.
"Waltz"
Along with Oh Well one of the two songs left (thankfully) unaltered on the album.
"Extraordinary Machine"
Slight changes in vocals and overall tempo at the very last chorus that can only really be noticed when I played the tracks side by side in WinAmp and ITunes. Oh, and a missing chime at the end that cuts two seconds off the running time. Still, almost identical to the original and just as good. No wonder, with the butchering of previous songs, it was promoted to lead track of the album.
"Please Please Please"
Changes to the vocals are slight and, as with Extraordinary Machine, only noticeable to the anal retentive, or those like myself who got used to the original version over six months or a year, plus some strange effects from an added Wurlitzer that make it sound like a contender for the new Doctor Who theme. Then, around the two minute mark, there's an extended instrumental and some deletions from the original song that make this song a new song entirely, although not necessarily a bad one - just one that once again seems more suited for When the Pawn...
"Parting Gift"
The only reason to buy the album is this beautiful, haunting, sparce girl and her piano song that is Fiona back to her Tidal roots, but with a new calm freshness that makes it an entirely different song than would have appeared on either album.
Overall, a good album - possibly a great album if you've never heard the unmixed version. If you have, I'd suggest just hopping over to ITunes, buying "Parting Gift" and listening to the unmixed album, unless, like me, you're a die-hard fan that'd buy an album of Fiona reading out of the phonebook if they released it. Still, even remixed, it's a triumph from a musical standpoint - better than her first album and, while When The Pawn is still my favorite, an important addition to any fan's collection.
Description of Fiona Apple: Extraordinary Machine
CD AUDIO SIDE: Entire AlbumDVD SIDE * Entire album in Enhanced LPCM Stereo * Brand-new videos for "Not About Love" and "Parting Gift" (live), never before released * Live performances of 5 songs filmed at the club Largo in Los Angeles, including "Fast As You Can" and "Paper Bag" * Behind-the-scenes footage
Fiona Apple, brooding, brainy belter and capital-A artist of near forbidding depth, begins her much gossiped-over third CD on a lark. The title track, one of two songs produced by Jon Brion before the label dispute that prompted hip-hop producer Mike Elizondo (50 Cent, Eminem) to step in, sounds like a Judy Garland number slathered with irony or something Rufus Wainwright might have had a hand in--strings soar, beats bump around skittishly, and notes require a ladder. But playful as it is, by the time the chorus kicks in it's clear why the world has missed Fiona Apple so much. Young female artists who have stepped into the spotlight since she fled it six years ago-- Nellie McKay and Joss Stone spring to mind for their cleverness and heat, respectively--seem slight in comparison. With every track ticked off, in fact, Extraordinary Machine moves listeners a little closer to what might be a correct assumption: that everything they've dipped into since 1999's When the Pawn ... was filler. Fans will feel it especially on "O'Sailor," a gimlet-eyed lament, and "Tymps," a tight piano track with a tip of the hat to hip-hop. It's "Window," though, with its lyric about "a filthy pane of glass" fogging up a clear view, that sums up the experience of this CD best. "I had to break the window," Apple sings, smoky-voiced as ever. "It just had to be." With Extraordinary Machine, she shatters already sky-high expectations. -Tammy La Gorce
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