Listening to a Fiona Apple album can be exhausting; her lyrics are oddly phrased, her music is too quirky to be consumed and can be over-long, and her voice is a distinctive, yet maddening low moan. Perhaps Fiona herself realized this, so she decided to change things, only a little, with her third album "Extraordinary Machine". However, this only came after she heard the first draft of the album, produced entirely by Jon Brion (he also produced her second album, 1999's "When the Pawn..."). It was bootlegged upon its 2003 completion, since her fans were starved for new music. Her fan base may have taken a liking to it, but Fiona decided that it could've used more wiggle room, so she decided to re-work the bulk of the songs, and chose Mike Elizondo as her main collaborator. There was a perfectly good reason for her decision, since the original recordings sounded too stuffy for their own good. With two more years, they were able to make the album that Fiona wanted. Now the songs were open, they were easier to digest and were more rounded than the leaked versions. That doesn't mean "Extraordinary Machine" sinks to the 80s fetish so omnipresent in the 2000s; rather, it's an album that can finally appeal to a large amount of people, as it consciously works pop-py melodies with layered, organic arrangements. It's not as lush as "When the Pawn...", and it's not as widely accessible as "Tidal", but it's arguably Fiona Apple's strongest album yet. Her songwriting, although heavy and condensed, is in prime form, and so is her voice, as it works its way through both alto and soprano registers (sometimes in the same song, see "Not About Love"). Musically, its structured with equal emphasis on rhythm and melody, so "Get Him Back" can hum along on its pulsating piano line, while the chamber-pop of the title track works both words and its harmonies into something rather special indeed. Best of all, while "Extraordinary Machine" is often thwarted by its length (it's two tracks and ten minutes longer than usual), it also gives a listener more to explore. There really is no reason to release albums more frequently than Fiona does, because each one is packed with several melodic changes and rhythmic shifts that aren't apparent on the first listen. If it takes her another six years to make an album as agreeable and as hooky as this, so be it. Fiona Apple has already built an incredible track record as a songwriter and a musician. At 28 years old, she can still blend her emotions and music together, creating an album that's even more rounded, more lovelorn, and more formidable than the last one. "Extraordinary Machine" is still too quirky for the masses, but that's the point, it wasn't meant for a mass audience, nor did Fiona re-record the album for this reason. She wanted to further her ambition and aim for more, instead of settling for less. That's impressive for any singer, but especially a mainstream artist in 2005, where the norm was to create hits, not songs. With Mike Elizondo's guidance, "Extraordinary Machine" is nothing short of extraordinary.
Recommended Tracks in Bold:
1. Extraordinary
Machine 2. Get Him Back 3. O’ Sailor
4. Better
Version of Me 5. Tymps 6.
Parting Gift
7. Window 8. Oh Well 9. Please
Please Please
10. Red Red Red 11. Not About Love 12. Waltz (Better than Fine)
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