don’t go changin’; I love you just the way you are.

Extraordinary Machine has “officially” been out two full weeks now, and I feel that if I don’t say something now, then I am going to lose the opportunity. Now, I bought the CD, and was happy to do so; even though I have had the whole thing (minus “Parting Gift”) since some time in March of this year. When the CD was leaked onto the net, I was aching for new Fiona, so, like many others, I downloaded it. And I loved it. Still do. So much so, that when I heard it was going to be released, I decided I was going to buy it, legitimately, you know, to help out the artist (especially considering that the rumor was that the album was shelved due to the fact that it was practically unmarketable, i.e. no viable singles, etc). And I did.

[image from fiona-apple.com]

And, I had read that Fiona had tinkered with most of the tracks, and honestly, that really excited me, that she would put more work into songs that were pretty much already perfection. So, they could only get better, right? Wrong. I was surprised to find out that most of the passion, angst, feeling, and honestly had left the songs. The words were there, but the emotion from Fiona was gone. In many of the rough versions of the songs that were leaked so many months ago, you could actually feel the emotion; you could tell that she had lived those lyrics.

Now, that is most of the reason that I love Fiona so much; she is more than a singer/songwriter, she is actually a poet. She writes what she feels, and when she reads her work, she puts all of the necessary emotion into it, so that you can feel what she is feeling. And in most of her work, she does so effortlessly; painfully at times. And that is not only what sets her apart, it is what makes her a wonderful and beautiful artist. So, that is why it confuses me that she worked so hard to remove that from Extraordinary Machine. The disc was wonderful before, so why did she change it? Now, I am not saying that there is anything wrong with it now, in fact, to the contrary, it is still great; BUT, it does lack the emotion the previous version holds. I know that a lot of people were against the downloading of the previous version, because of the apparent backlash that it had on the release of the new one, and honestly, I think that I am starting to agree; after all, if I had not downloaded it, I wouldn’t know what I was actually missing. But, given that I did download it, if I reach for a version of EM to listen to, you can bet I am reaching for that one that I downloaded. I will keep the other one on the shelf, and feel good that I actually paid for that, and “acquired it legally; but I will definitely wish, deep down that I had actually paid for the version that I love so much.

PlayMe:
Fiona Apple – Not In Love
Billy Joel – Just the Way You Are
Infernal – From Paris to Berlin