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List Price: $19.97 | | Label: Sony
Salesrank: 7049
Released: October 4, 2005 |
| Our Price: $6.45 |
| Used Price: $1.82 |
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| Media: Audio CD |
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Extraordinary Machine Track Listing:
1. Extraordinary Machine
2. Get Him Back
3. O' Sailor
4. Better Version Of Me
5. Tymps (The Sick In The Head Song)
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)
Editorial Review:
CD AUDIO SIDE: Entire Album
DVD 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
Description of Extraordinary Machine:
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
Extraordinary Machine Reviews:
Fantastic, amused, Fiona... 
2007-03-20 - Musically pretty. Fiona has been experimenting with her own music, creating new sensations and illusions; this is just a step further.
A sad sad decline 
2007-03-11 - Well it was an obvious path to musical collapse, she should have stopped at Tidal. If I'd been dating her for the talent she showed on her first CD I would have broken up with her over this piece of haggis. The course of the last three CD's drew a trendline right from stardom into a melodic pit. The lyrics on Extraordinary Machine were not only not up to their namesake but worse than the melodies. The number of great reviews on this site only go to prove once again the masses prefer pablum in lieu of something complex and cognitive.
Her original Cd with it's collection of diminished and augmented chords set to deep overlays of texturing, blended with truly poetic lyrics has been replaced with a distilled musical joke. What on earth gave her the impetus to try to go 'artsy' by experimenting with music predating the second world war I'll never know. It's obvious her angst is no longer producing art, rather it is being replaced with contrived resolution and the equivalent of a musical epitaph.
Eat it up people, it's all about not having to think. It's the kind of tripe that happens when someone is trying to hard to think of how to outdo their first brush stroke of genius and is confronted with musical block. Judging by the news her father is ruining her life and creativity as so often is the case in todays less than feminine half of the culture.
a great follow-up to when the pawn...
2007-01-20 - excellent record...
just like a great wine goes well with great food, this is an excellent follow-up to when the pawn (to me her masterpiece) ... listen to her previous album before this one to get the whole picture... excellent, very weird record... fiona is getting even more radical.. and shows she really is one of the best artists of the decade...
One of the best albums of all time
2007-01-18 - Ms. Apple's talent for consistently brilliant songwriting is staggering. This is a must-have for anyone fascinated by the blurry line between intellectual exploration and raw emotional experience.
A Highly Biased (but still arguably fair, right?) Review From an Avid Fan
2006-10-20 - I was showing up at stores weeks before this album came out asking if it had come out yet. Yep. I was that annoying girl tapping you on the shoulder and asking, "Well, when should I come back do you think?"
I'm all about Fiona Apple.
And I'm all about this album.
This was also the first dual disc I bought. It was a serious act of restraint on my part to wait for the dual disc to be available to me. I was VERY curious about this new fangled technology and wanted all the Apple my sorry buck could buy.
I was amply rewarded for my patience. The DVD components are spectacular. This disc was in my DVD player for several months. I'd rotate it out when I was going to watch a movie, but as soon as the movie was up, Fiona would be back in her place. I keep the jewel case on top of my television whereas all the lowly mere *music* discs are relegated to the top of my stereo. Oh yes. It's good. REALLY good.
The music is brilliant and broody and as lyrically lovely as ever.
"And it doesn't seem fair
that your wicked words should work in
holding me down
No, it doesn't seem right
to take information;
Given at close range;
For the gag, and the bind, and
ammunition round"
She's haunting and vulnerable and strong and moving and sincere and how can you *not* love her for it?
On the DVD side she covers seven songs in a small ill-lit club including a kick-arse rendition of "Fast as You Can" featuring Chris Thile from Nickel Creek on mandolin. Beautiful. I found myself wanting those songs on the CD side as well because they were so well done.
To all Fiona fans: how can you NOT have this album? Buy it. Fast. As. You. Can.
