Not In Love

Here’s some news: Fiona Apple shit all over her wonderful unreleased Extraordinary Machine so that she could have something banal and common.

Yes, it’s true. If you don’t believe me, go listen to a clip of the OFFICIAL version of Not In Love here. I can’t hold up a Jon Brion UNRELEASED clip of Not In Love because Sony has sued them all off of the internet so you would have to resort to Torrent if you’d like to hear one, but what you have to understand is that there was this gorgeous little cello riff in the background that sortof spat back at the little piano rumble, and she sounded so playful, and little violins swooped in so that this bed of strings caught her every phrase. And there was NONE of this SISSY cymbal ride crap, no drums were required, and NO GUITARS either, for that matter. Not on this song, and not anywhere on the album, and its lack was a beautiful refreshing thing – like drinking beautiful clean water from a very deep well. But, what has Fiona given us? Nasty, ugly, terrible ELECTRIC guitar spread like a thick coating of shit all over her tremendously large chorus chords, guitar so nasty, ugly and terrible that you CANNOT HEAR how the bottom notes are clanging against themselves slightly out of tune because that’s how pianos get way down there when you play big chords hard.

She erased the charm from the most charming song i’ve heard in months. For reasons i cannot discern Fiona HERSELF, not SONY, not any other evil CONGLOMERATE of people, but FIONA threw out Jon Brion’s gorgeous arrangement in exchange for an exercise in utter banality. I listen to a beautiful song almost every day for four months and she wrecks it.

I’m not in love, because I can’t stop falling out. If this is what the other eleven tracks hold in store, I honestly hope Fiona’s re-recorded Extraordinary Machine tanks like a record has never tanked before. It would be her just reward; she looked the goddamned gift horse in the mouth. NO ONE gets two amazing versions of the same album. Look at Let It Be. Perfection is not meant to be fucked with. I will personally distribute Jon Brion versions to EVERY PERSON I KNOW if that’s what it takes. No one should have to pay money for her silly retool of a so tangible, so personal, so charmingly different original when they could have that instead.

Do you want one?