Fiona Apple - Better Version Of Me
Hey, remember my call to action last month? Well, the movement is growing. Here’s the story and what you can do to help.
Fiona Apple’s website hasn’t been updated in 5 years. She supposedly has a Jon Brion produced album that is finished and sitting on the shelf at Epic Records. Rumor has it that they don’t know how to market it, so they’ve basically forgotten about it. Two tracks, Better Version of Me and Extraordinary Machine, were leaked over the summer and they are awesome. I can’t tell you how bad I want to hear the rest of this album. So, the only thing I can think to do is to have you download these tracks and ask you to give links to this post on your sites. If you have an MP3 blog feel free to host the songs and write about them. But most importantly, if you love these songs as much as I do, please go here and beg Sony to release the album.
There is also a new international organization campaigning to Sony/Epic for the release of Fiona Apple’s new album. Check out www.freefiona.com to find out what you can do to help get this album released.
Bonus Track: Extraordinary Machine
Posted in Scenestars
October 26th, 2004 at 10:33 am
I was so excited when you posted those 2 tracks earlier this year. I thought for sure it meant the album was due out soon. Went to Sony to beg - hope it does some good. Thanks.
October 26th, 2004 at 2:07 pm
No, I think you’re on the right track…if more of it leaks at your or other people’s blogs, or on p2p, Sony will start getting fidgety and perceive that their pockets might take a hit, and the wheels of behind-the-scenes negotiations and marketing strategies will suddenly be greased. If not…no telling. I have a feeling that us begging will make them feel that the anticipation for the album is building, which I’m sure they’ll love. And I’m sure they love the marketing they’re getting from blogs now!
October 26th, 2004 at 5:45 pm
The CowboyTrance Orchestra is behind ya, Rachel. Good call. Tracks and a link to SS are up now. Let’s get it done!
http://www.cowboytrance.com
October 26th, 2004 at 8:28 pm
This happens all the time. Jennifer Warnes recorded two albums in the 1990s that her record companies sat on and never released. Jill Sobule recorded an album for MCA just prior to her eponymous “I Kissed A Girl” album on another label. These have never seen the light of day. Al Stewart’s latest record wouldn’t have been released except that EMI happened to pick it up in the UK. The music business is seriously pathologic. What do they gain by having this music rusting in the vault? I don’t get it.
eric
October 27th, 2004 at 7:35 am
Have a call to arms at my mp3 blog Life Of A Spuckle. Here’s hoping….
October 27th, 2004 at 8:53 am
The iTunes music storre seems like a perfect way to release these “vaulted” albums. Minimal distribution costs, no real manufacturing costs or marketing costs, don’t even need to do album art! If the album takes off, then go ahead and release the CD version.
Verve is re-releasing a bunch of out of print stuff on iTunes rather than traditional CDs — my guess is that any big sellers will come out on CD.
This seems perfect for any label’s out of print back catalog… there are a couple LeRoi Brothers records I’d LOVE to have digitally, but the labels are never going to make the effort to do a traditional reissue.
October 28th, 2004 at 2:17 pm
I’ve been listening to these tracks since about the time they hit the net, and I still can’t get enough of these songs. This whole thing is just downright silly, fakes like that Ashley Simpson are given free reign by the industry to release their boring garbage. But god forbid someone with talent comes along and makes what sounds to be a great record…oh no better not release that one. It’s not even like Fiona is some obscure artist her first two albums sold really well in their time. Maybee they are afraid Fiona will make make the talentless pinup girls, britney etc…look bad? Whole damn industry just pisses me off. Which is really sad if you think about it usually it’s the biggest music fans that have the largest hate for the music industry.
November 23rd, 2004 at 2:04 pm
I’m sayin’, she needs a new gimmick, like an entourage of Japanese fashion chicks or something.
“Fiona, how should I say this … look, the song’s great, but I don’t hear a single …”
Why any artists still bother messing with major record labels is so beyond me at this point …
And in the past 5 years, she couldn’t even bother to start her own site or a blog or something? Maybe she had a nervous breakdown or something; she always seemed pretty high-strung. Anyone know anything about that?
November 26th, 2004 at 10:03 pm
Fiona Apple is a great testament to how the personal neuroses of an artist can get in the way of their ability to create. These songs are both very good, but the label cannot market this album effectively.
To the best of my knowledge, Fiona started her career on the WORK imprint of Sony. That imprint has since dissolved and her contract was absorbed by the larger entity of Columbia/Sony. Even with Tim Devine still at the label (the man who helmed Work, is he still there? I think so), the alienation effect of early success and the multitude of delays which can be attributed to any number of personal issues (none of which it shows any good taste to delve into here) have made for an all-around nuisance factor in the music business.
The reason that the Ashley Simpson’s of the world get the perks and the kudos is because they are media whores in the truest sense. They aren’t afraid to be as stupid as they can be in order to be seen. Fiona has repeatedly made machinations that give the impression she wants to control the way people perceive here when she can’t.
Fiona’s immeasurable talent combined with unfathomable frailty of sorts has drawn her away from public life little by little. Ashley Simpson is the kind of girl who doesn’t care what people say about anything. Ashley will show up every day for work even if she’s terrible; Fiona has been so hit-and-miss on dependability of making appearances that people have lost faith in her ability to promote her own work and she knows it.
So, at the end of the day, the real lesson is not in the album itself. Fiona Apple is indeed a household name and, as with a lot of artists, people either love her or hate her. But she has to be available, both physically and emotionally, or else there is nothing to assist in the promotion of her work besides some well-placed advertising.
If you don’t want to be in the music business, you shouldn’t be involved. What happens if you become successful and people like you? Suddenly, you have to be that thing. Preparing for success is a lot like preparing for failure, only the phone rings a lot more often. If you’re not there to take the call, someone else will take it for you.
I love Fiona Apple and Jon Brion. I do. But if you can’t even be bothered to show up for your life, this business is not the one to be in.
November 26th, 2004 at 10:35 pm
Apparently I wasn’t logged in when I posted that tirade. I figured I should at least take credit for it since, some might say, it was a bit scathing.
But seriously folks…Fiona needs to start showing up before the label takes her seriously enough to market her album. There are plenty of media outlets where they can do it, but has it occurred to anyone that we might have heard the two best songs on the album already?
I’m curious to know just like you are, but if I’m Sony, I’m not going to dig into my pockets to market a record that is either incoherent, inconsistent, or where the artist is not even available to promote their own work.
I was just reminded of this other artist about whom I have similar feelings….you may remember her, this woman named Lauryn Hill?
November 27th, 2004 at 3:27 am
Thanks for posting these songs. Fiona Apple definately needs to get more coverage in the music world, because her devoted fans have been waiting so long to hear some new songs. I’ve been listening to them for a few months and I just keep hoping some of the other tracks will get released.
November 27th, 2004 at 7:31 am
I would definitely buy this album if it was made available on iTunes.