Fiona Apple - Extraordinary Machine

I certainly haven't been shopping for any new shoes.

Fiona returns, and she is on fire. A quite impressive album, though it falls a hair short of achieving the brilliance of 'When The Pawn...' I prefer this over 'Tidal' which in itself is pretty spectacular as well. July 25, 2008

A Little Stick of Dynamite

Such a small woman with such a big voice. She is amazing. I listened to this CD today,2008. June 16, 2008

Flawed Masterpiece

Like all Fionas albums, Extraordinary Machine has fantastic, creative lyrics backed up with a wonderful voice and perfect instrumentation.

So where does it fall short? - the mastering, sadly someone made the decision to have the album mastered by "Big Bass" Brian Gardner who is famous in the industry for making 'hot' or overly loud recordings.

Perhaps having the volume turned up to 11 works for hip hop albums, but it does Fiona no favours here. Having the volume level almost constant all the way through just makes it tiring to listen to.

There are leaked MP3's floating around the net which contain early studio recordings of Extraordinary Machine, although clearly unfinished the leaked tracks sound better simply because you can hear the full dynamic range of the music.

While it's far from being the worst victim of the 'loudness war' it could have been so much more. May 9, 2008

Cheesy noodling in the studio.

I can't call this music but I guess it is.

F. Apple shows ANYBODY with a computer these days can pump out some basic songs, getting them out there is the hard part. F. Apple's fame is the mystery.

There are no songs on this album. Just noodlings. Not even clever or original noodlings. This album was released in the 21st century but sounds like half the bad pop you can find in any used CD bin at the local record store. The nineties never died, it appears.

An embarrassing reminder of how low music has fallen over the years... March 2, 2008

If you don't like this album, you're beyond help!

All other reviewers have sung the worthy praises of "Extraordinary Machine," so I have little else to add other than they're right! The title song is an absolute BLAST to listen to; don't try to over analyze this song at first, just listen to the masterful lyrics (painful and humorous), the unconventional-to-say-the-least sounds of the instrumental arrangement, and bathe in the wonder that is great music, radio be damned!! Also, the last half of "Not about love" is not to be missed: a virtuoso performance lyrically, vocally, and at the keys as the tempo picks up full-throttle, using the same theme from the opening of the song, but at about 5 times the speed. One of the best musicians currently producing music. Just one problem....we need more!!! February 25, 2008

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