Fiona Apple: Extraordinary Machine
by Bob Hill
Fiona Apple
Extraordinary Machine
(Epic/Clean Slate, 2005)
“We as human beings—at our best—can only create opportunities. ~ Fiona Apple (via Maya Angelou), 1997
It’s been more than a decade since Fiona Apple made her now-famous speech at the VMAs, a decade since she was named Best New Artist, a decade since she hopped onstage and declared that “this world is bullshit” and “it’s just stupid [she’s] in it.”
It was the acceptance speech heard ‘round the world, a speech that caused leagues of disaffected estro-youth to revel around her, a speech that made Apple exactly the type of anti-establishment shill record companies salivate over.
Looking back, it makes you wonder just how many “opportunities” Apple has created for herself in the years since then. Or, more to the point, just how many “opportunities” she may have squandered.
By now most music fans know the story behind Extraordinary Machine—an album originally slated for release in November of ’02 that sat on the shelf until the fall of 2005. It was an album that drove Apple to the brink of commercial extinction before catapulting her high atop the mantle of critical acclaim; an album that almost everyone—including Apple—had all but given up on.
For three long years, Machine engendered the same type of debate as records like Smile and The Chinese Democracy. Would holding off the release for so long ruin the album’s mainstream appeal? Which rumors were true and which were false? Was the delay a matter of artistic integrity or commercial viability? Was any album worth waiting this long for?
Apple spent six years writing, recording, and rerecording Extraordinary Machine... six years. Six years is like three decades in Billboard terms. Jim Morrison got rich, then poor, then dead in six years’ time. Ol’ Dirty Bastard changed his name at least four times in a six-year span. Nirvana’s entire catalogue took less than six years to record.
Those six years from 1999 to 2005 were a tumultuous period for Apple. Record execs were dissatisfied with the original masters for Machine. Several of the tracks leaked via the internet and radio. Diehard fans with far too much time on their hands started a Barabbas-like grassroots campaign called “Free Fiona,” pleading with Sony representatives to release the LP.
Apple, fed up with the apparent lack of progress, went home and watched reruns of Columbo (Seriously, look it up).
Somewhere amidst all the mayhem, Sony execs approved Apple rerecording eight of the original tracks for Machine… under one condition: Each time she finished reworking a song, she’d have to submit it for their approval before they’d allow her to move on to the next. It was a complete affront to the artistic process, but Apple—feeling she had very little choice in the matter—agreed, and the wheels began to spin again.
Extraordinary Machine was finally released on October 4, 2005, and (by most accounts) it was well worth the wait. The crowd went wild, the critics went batshit, and all the Free Fiona junkies went back to playing Doom in their mothers' basements.
The record was offbeat and playful, punctuated by a sort of Alice in Wonderland vibe throughout. The songs were childlike without ever sounding childish. It was a tripped-out highwire act of an album, and Apple was hailed a five-star genius again.
All of which was incredibly fortunate, considering stories like this rarely have a happy ending.
Whether it’s an artist’s relentless pursuit of perfection or the tug-of-war between music-as-expression and big-business-interest, standoffs between major labels and their artists are the things VH-1 specials are made of.
Fortunately, this standoff came to an end. The question that now remains is just how different Apple’s career might have been if Extraordinary Machine was released in the requisite two-year period following When the Pawn. After selling 94,000 units in its first week, Machine dropped out of Billboard’s Top 10, and eventually sold somewhere in the neighborhood of half-a-million copies (falling far short of Tidal’s three-million-plus copies).
After touring in support of the record, Apple seems to have fallen off the face of the planet. Currently there are no plans for a new record or tour and virtually no signs of life on her website, save for a handful of message board fans mulling over their favorite Fiona pic or voting for their favorite YouTube clip.
Barring another miracle comeback, this could be the end of Apple as we know her. The record industry is famous for its short-term memory, and most artists are only as marketable as their last single. And that type of anonymity may be just fine with Apple, who doesn’t seem highly motivated by platinum records or Grammy nods. Part of her wood-nymph charm rests in keeping us guessing exactly what it is that lies behind those deep-set eyes of hers.
We may never know the answer to that, which is a shame, because it means Apple—at her best—hasn’t really created as many opportunities as she could have. To which she might counter that her opportunities are different than yours or mine.
Perhaps she believes that the three records she’s recorded represent all she really has to say, that money or fame shouldn’t motivate artists to create in the first place.
And even if her notoriety does fade, if there’s no one there to protest the release of her fourth record, if the well goes dry and she truly has nothing left to say, chances are Fiona Apple will make the most of it. She is, after all, an extraordinary machine.
Watch: "Extraordinary Machine" [at youtube.com]
» Previously: Burn the Neon Bible
