Fans have yet to figure out the mystery behind Fiona Apple's new album, "Extraordinary Machine," but the story being passed from fan to fan on blogs and Web sites goes something like this:
The avant-pop singer, whose first two CDs went multiplatinum, had been contemplating retirement at the age of 25 because the record industry was so mean and sharky; producer Jon Brion convinced her she needed to make another record. They started recording around July 2002; by May 2003, the album was supposedly done. A month passed. A year passed. No album. Sony, rumor had it, shelved the project because it didn't hear a commercial single.
Fans began picketing—"Free Fiona!"—and sending Sony president Andrew Lack an apple a day. In June 2004, the title track mysteriously popped up on the Internet. Apple's supporters on various message boards felt sure she had leaked it. In July, another song appeared. Then, two months ago, a DJ at the Seattle FM station The End got a bootleg of the whole CD from a secret source. He played it, fans went wild—and now "Extraordinary Machines" is reportedly one of the top downloads in the country.
The mystery, of course, is a great marketing tool. Apple gets to look like a heroine who kept her artistic integrity; Sony looks like a blundering giant, too stupid to recognize a winner. So, did she give her music away to please her fans and spite her label? Neither she nor her management would comment. Producer Brion has claimed that Sony did in fact shelve "Machines," but a source close to the situation told NEWSWEEK that Apple herself was unhappy with the record and never really finished working on it. According to the source, Brion may have leaked the CD so it would not go unheard. Brion denies it. "That's ridiculous," he told NEWSWEEK. "I would never allow that to happen." And the official statement from Sony is a model of opacity: "We join music lovers everywhere in eagerly anticipating her next release."
While they're anticipating, you could be listening: "Machines" deserves to be heard. It's not all Apple at her best: a third of it is stellar, a third merely good and the rest feels unfinished. Brion has made the record sound like a film score, with horns and strings and odd little sound samples—a man's operatic bellow, the jingle of a bicycle bell. The songs range from brassy cabaret to a velvety, off-kilter waltz. Beneath Apple's coolly sultry singing there's an undercurrent of rage: "Wait till I get him back, he won't have a back to scratch / Yeah, keep turning that chin and you will see my face as I consider how to kill what I cannot catch." It's this emotional tumult, as well as her sheer talent, that makes Apple one of the few intriguing major-label artists left out there—if she still is a major-label artist. The mystery's fun, but it's the music that matters.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7304435/site/newsweek/
