Lovely apples

Fiona Apple has never been particularly popular at Discopop Towers, but I was intrigued by the story of her new album. Initially recorded in 2002, Fiona's record label (Sony BMG) had a hissy-fit because it "didn't have any singles". So, they hired Dr Dre's engineer Mike Elizondo, and made Apple re-record the whole thing one song at a time, forcing her to get approval on each song before they'd give her money to record the next one.

Disheartened, she quit the recording process. It wasn't until fans organised a protest, and the original recordings were 'fortuitously' leaked on the internet to general accalim, that Sony reconsidered and asked Fiona back to the recording studio. "Extraordinary Machine" finally came out on Monday.

I have to admit, I wouldn't have paid a new Fiona Apple track any attention if the circumstances were any different. But, there just happens to be a download of the song "Red Red Red" on fluxblog and it turns out to be excellent, in a kind of smoky, late-night, Fabulous Baker Boys kind of way. I particularly like the line "What's so impressive about a diamond, except for the mining?"

A bit more digging reveals you can preview the whole album on Myspace. When you (correctly) decide that your life won’t be complete without owning the entire album, you can pick it up for a bargain £8.75 at CD-Wow.

Who said we don't look after you?

PS: Fiona's website is fionaapple.org

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