Fiona Apple

May 07, 2008

Every year there are a couple songs that never come off the radio and everyone is obsessed with. I think a couple years ago, Fiona Apple’s “Extraordinary Machine” was one of those songs. I skipped it. But now, thanks to my ipod shuffle, I have re-found it, and I can’t stop listening to it. I have a special place in my heart for pop stars who totally shift their style successfully. And Fiona did this amazingly. The song sounds like a Gilbert & Sullivan! Love it. I mean, nothing like my music, but astonishingly good nonetheless (something not like my music that is still good, you ask? I know, I say, unlikely, and yet apparently it has been achieved!) I supposed I also like the style change because though my music has always been the style it is now, or something like, it it’s never what people expect me, a dashing young black British man, to make. Everyone always expects me to get out on stage in a tight black t-shirt, put a pound of gel in my hair and some $500 trainers on my feet. I don’t do that, and Fiona Apple, once a pop darling, now sounds like she’s putting on a musical. If there was some kind of prom to go to, I would want to go with her.

(I mean, her music still sounds a bit like her first big album from the 90’s, but the tone is much more serious and narrative)

It doesn’t seem like the kind of song a person would listen to over and over again, but I have listened to this song many times in the past twenty-four hours. Many, many times.

I have even used to remote control on my stereo to put it back to repeat.

Bloody great sound.