January 27th, 2005

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Music
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Fiona Apple, Prisoner of Her Own Lousiness

Via Stereogum, I read about FreeFiona.com. As MTV News writes (this may be the first time I’ve cited that paragon of journalism):

Apple’s third record, Extraordinary Machine, completed in May 2003, has been gathering dust on Sony’s shelves, according to Jon Brion, the album’s producer. Label executives allegedly don’t consider it commercial enough for release, and thus a long and mostly uneventful silence has followed.

One person hoping to change all that–21-year-old Apple aficionado Dave Muscato–has built a Web site and online campaign to help free the LP from record-label limbo.

Surely there’s a technological solution to this problem? What would that be? Maybe break into the studio, steal the masters and put the album on P2P networks? Release it only on iTunes (which will result in the same thing)? Surely the record company has released worse albums, and putting it on iTunes can’t cost much money. After all, there’s apparently 22,980 people chomping at the bit to buy the thing. Is this yet another example of fans dragging the music industry kicking and screaming to the money tree (thank you, Cory Doctorow)?

Comments: 3 Responses so far

Kirsten
January 27th, 2005
6:19 pm

Haha, this is just what I’ve been saying - Sony’s already spent the money to record the damn thing, so why not just upload it and see what happens? What have they got to lose at this point beyond a little bit of cautious PR and marketing?

I get more search engine hits on my site for “whatever happened to fiona apple” than any other word or phase. There does seem to be a market for this album, whether it’s good or not.

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Judd
January 27th, 2005
6:45 pm

“The A&R Man said “I don’t hear a single’” - Tom Petty, Into the Great Wide Open.

I guess Sony doesn’t believe they can sell it. I wonder who made that decision. I mean, Talk Talk made Laughing Stock in ‘91 - I’d love to see more labels taking chances.

Same thing happened to NIN & TVT with ‘Broken’ (Trent Held Out) Arista & Sarah McLachlan with “Solace” (she caved and wrote the single they wanted), and don’t forget Wilco and ‘Yankee Foxtrot Hotel’. Luckily Wilco could buy back the masters from the label to finally release the album after they were dropped.

Music is just a column on the side in the record industry. They’re there as businesses selling product - and usually for someone else’s bottom line.

I agree with Kirsten - Put it on iTunes and sell it there - but don’t take her chance to recoup the $$ they spent making the record away. Keep the fans happy too.

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,65688,00.html

BTW - Freaky picture, dude.

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harp
January 28th, 2005
6:32 am

I hope Fiona gets out of her record deal with the album…she deserves better than to be tied to a record deal with those stupid record companies. After Apple’s last disc I’m sure she’s not interested in ‘hit singles’ and that pop-tastic way of thinking.

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