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| From | "Christopher" <plattc@optonline.net> |
| Subject | Extraordinary Machine Retooled. |
| Date | Mon, 15 Aug 2005 09:39:16 -0400 |
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Front page of today's Arts section of the NYTimes...
Fiona Apple Retools Her Leaked Album
By JEFF LEEDS
Published: August 15, 2005
Fiona Apple, the smoky-voiced singer whose unreleased third album turned
into a cause célèbre for her fervent fans and was leaked online, has
recorded new versions of its songs and plans to release the album on Oct. 4,
according to people involved with the recording.
The album, "Extraordinary Machine," is the Grammy-winning artist's first
studio CD in six years, and is likely to be one of the industry's most
closely watched albums at the start of the preholiday rush. The CD may also
place Ms. Apple and her label, Epic Records, in the unusual position of
watching how fans and critics judge her new release against the leaked
versions of her earlier recordings of the same songs. The 12-song CD
includes nine new versions of material that had circulated on unlicensed
Internet file-swapping networks, two previously leaked songs and one
brand-new one, "Parting Gift."
The label is wasting little time in tapping fans' curiosity. Epic plans
today to reveal a new version of Ms. Apple's Web site, on which fans can
hear two of the album's songs, "Parting Gift" and the rerecorded "O'
Sailor." The latter will also be available for listening at myspace.com, the
online social network. Tomorrow major online music services plan to begin
selling "O' Sailor" as a single, and Apple's iTunes music service is
expected to offer an exclusive bundle of the two songs for $1.98.
Mike Elizondo, the album's producer, said most of the songs sound "radically
different" from the earlier, leaked renditions, which Ms. Apple had made
with the producer Jon Brion. Mr. Elizondo said that he had listened to the
earlier cuts, but "once we headed off in our direction I didn't go back to
reference them."
"Everything was done from scratch," he added.
Only time will tell whether that will turn out to be a shrewd move. The
leaked version of the album earned favorable reviews from critics. Jon
Pareles, writing in The New York Times in April, called - it "an oddball
gem." On the other hand, the songs never became as popular online as other
bootleg sensations, like "The Grey Album," the celebrated - and unauthorized
- compilation of songs pairing Jay-Z's raps with the Beatles' melodies that
circulated online last year. To many, the muted response online suggested
that Epic and Ms. Apple were right to continue polishing the material. In an
e-mail message yesterday, Ms. Apple said: "Now that my album is finally
finished, I am very, very excited to have people hear what we did. I am so
proud of it, and of all of us who worked on it."
Epic has also been hungry to release a new CD from Ms. Apple, who burst onto
the pop scene in 1996 with a low, smoldering voice and an intriguing twist
on confessional songwriting. Her first CD, "Tidal," sold 2.7 million copies.
The second, "When the Pawn ...," was released in 1999 and has sold 920,000
copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Given the amount of time since her last album and the still-avant-garde
nature of the finished songs, many people involved with Ms. Apple's career
expect her label to take a laid-back and low-cost approach to marketing the
album, relying partly on word-of-mouth to build an audience.
But until now, the evolution of "Extraordinary Machine" had all the makings
of a public-relations disaster for Epic and its corporate parent, Sony BMG
Music Entertainment. In January Mr. Brion told MTV News that he had
completed the album in May 2003, and that the company had shelved it. For
their part, fans organized online to demand its release.
Record executives, however, insist Ms. Apple herself believed the album
remained a work in progress. "It was never in a place where she wanted it
out," said one executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect a
relationship with Ms. Apple.
Though the leak began with just two tracks, eventually 11 wound up on the
Internet. Ms. Apple was already several months into rerecording many of them
with Mr. Elizondo, who has been known primarily for his work as a session
musician and writer for the rap megaproducer Dr. Dre.
When the earlier versions were leaked, "for a split second I was like, 'are
we going to get to keep working on this?' " Mr. Elizondo said. But "there
wasn't even a moment where anybody said anything," he continued. "I think
from right out of the gate, this is the collection of songs she wanted for
her record."
The release of "Extraordinary Machine" echoes a situation faced by another
popular act, the Dave Matthews Band, four years ago. Weeks after the band
released "Everyday," an album produced by Glen Ballard, Mr. Matthews and his
bandmates discovered that an album's worth of songs they had recorded
earlier - and then scrapped - had leaked to file-sharing systems and had
been heard by untold numbers of the band's followers.
"Everyday" went on to sell 3.6 million copies, but several critics, not to
mention hard-core fans, voiced a preference for the somewhat downbeat
unreleased material, which had been created with the band's longtime
producer, Steve Lillywhite, over the work produced by Mr. Ballard, whose
influence gave the band a lighter, more radio-friendly sound. The band
rerecorded many of the songs from the so-called "Lillywhite sessions" and
released them as the album "Busted Stuff" in 2002. That album has sold an
estimated 1.9 million copies.
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