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FREE FIONA!!!
34 replies
RoxHard said on January 29, 2005 04:03:
A huge injustice has been made to an artist every-bit as credible to any of the Tori’s, Björk’s and Polly’s.
OK, I only consider myself a “part time” fan, as I find her a bit too defensive at times. But I utterly respect her work and undeniable talent... Ladies & Gentlemen... this is the story of the huge misjustice as to why we haven’t had a new album from Fiona Apple in nearly 6 years, and ultimately.. how YOU can help!
I’m reporting this not as a Fiona-fan... but from an “Artists rights” point of view!
It’s been a long time since Fiona’s “When The Pawn...”. 1999, to be exact. However... after 18 months work, her follow up album “Extraordinary Machine” was completed and ready to go in early 2003.
However, since the time of “When the pawn..” the head of Sony records, Tommy “Love ya, baby!” Mottola, left the company and was replaced by former NBC president Andrew Lack, a businessman with no prior music experience. He immediately shifted Sony Music’s focus to pop and hip-hop acts that are traditionally bigger sellers.
When Fiona presented “Extraordinary Machine” to Sony in Mid 2003, she was told her new work simply wasn’t “commercial enough”, and that there were no “radio singles”. Not even considering the fact that she has always gone platinum with her previous albums, despite being a cult artist. Sony gave her the ultimatum of “Go and record atleast one new track for the album that could be a radio single... then we’ll consider releasing it” She did this... and recorded the track “Better Version Of Me” (you betcha the title was a stab at them! lol)... However... they still weren’t satisfied. And this is where it gets complicated...
Because she hadn’t sold badly, or “flopped”... she couldn’t be “dropped” from the label as she still has albums to make left on her contract. So, they simply “shelved” the album, and dumped it in storage somewhere as they weren’t prepared to put money into promoting music they didn’t think would appeal commercially. This however is where it gets messy for Fiona... She had a third album ready and waiting. Sony won’t release it because they don’t think it’s commercial enough, and are waiting for Fiona to say “OK OK... i’ll do a pure pop album that’ll sell millions”... but why should she!?
So, because they wont release the album, and she’s stuck in this contract that Sony didn’t even give her the option to terminate... she can’t even go to another record label as technically Sony own the masters of “Extraordinary Machine”... So, she’s trapped.
The title track “Extraordinary Machine”, and “Better Version Of Me” did manage to leak onto the net before the masters vansihed into storage... and quite honestly.. they are amazing and rival any of her previous work. This is a huge injustice and a genuine insult to honest ’Artists’ anywhere, as Sony has turned this into a pathetic battle of Money Vs Musicianship... Business Vs. Art...
Whether you’re a fan of Fiona or not... this is a PRINCIPLE that all of us as music lovers should feel something for.
Thankfully, some very well organised fans have taken it apon themselves to do something about this... And it has really started to pay off...
Please read... http://www.freefiona.com - I was stunned by the amount of work they have done that just well might actually do some good!
Also... a petition in conjunction with freefiona.com has been set up:
http://www.petitiononline.com/Fiona9/petition.html
As I said before... this is much, much more than “Fiona-fans want new material!”... It’s become a prime example of how corporate fat-cats are killing genuine artistry... and making us, the fans, the music buying public suffer... and forcing us to download, which they say they want to stop!
The care and organisation that has gone into the freefiona campaigns really could go down in history if it succeeds... MTV, Rolling Stone and many other big media names have already taken note and reported on it...
SIGN THE PETITION...
Free Fiona...
and Help Prove that if it wasn’t for the art... those fat cats wouldn’t be there in the first place!
Thankyou!
coyboyusa said on January 29, 2005 13:35:
fiona hasn’t proven herself as much as an artist to warrant lienecy from any lable, they waited long enough for her follow up, and honestly after i heard the 2 leaked tracks from the album i really know it must suck as an album, this crap with artists taking 5 yrs to make followups and then whining about not having a fan base or lable support is hysterical, its a business people
coyboyusa said on January 29, 2005 13:38:
and i honestly don’t understand how she would be comptromising herself if she had made a commercial followup nd then put out the other albums to resolve her contract if she’s so disatisfied with sony as a lable, cher did that after the believe album, an internet only acoustic album, dave matthews band re recorded an entire album to please their lable and then the lable allowed them to put out what they wanted its give and take
RoxHard said on January 29, 2005 20:05:
er... did you actually even read the article coyboy? you’re talking so much bs there...
RoxHard said on January 31, 2005 06:33:
What’s wrong with you people?
An artist gets deadlocked in a crappy record deal, unable to release new material, simply because she’s not being “commercial enough”.
What if this happened to Marie?
What if Marie Fredriksson presents EMI with a new album next year - and EMI turns around to her and says “even though your albums constantly sell well in Sweden without having any songs radio will play 1,000,000 times - there’s no radio single, so we’re not releasing this... go back into the studio and make us a radio single”. And Marie does make this 1 song that will be played on Radio - but EMI still say ’no’ to releasing this album. And they refuse to terminate Marie Freddriksson from her record deal with EMI. Affectively leaving her stranded. Would you all be replying “oh, poor little rich girl Marie Fredriksson” then? I seriously doubt it...
And coyboyusa - you would obviously say “these new songs suck”. If you stated otherwise - you would be contradicting that stupid little remark you just made. I have to tell you... this topic has been the only place where I’ve ever read that these songs WEREN’T fucking brilliant! So.. obviously, you’re wrong.
RoxHard said on January 31, 2005 06:37:
Why exactly has coyboyusa never had his user account disabled here on TDR? For as long as I can remember, he has always replied to topics just to annoy and contradict the topic author - not because they’re his opinions - but simply because he likes stirring things up?
And still... nothing! Not a glimmer of hope of him having his account disabled...
eBay said on January 31, 2005 12:24:
@RoxHard
I think everybody here is entitled to have their own opinions. Just because cowboy sometimes stands alone with his opinions doesn’t mean that they should restrict him from writing here. And I must hoenstely say, I do agree with what he said in this topis here. You know, something like this could never happen to Marie, it was a bad example to give. Of course Maries Music isnt really waht you would call comercial, but she always kept bringing out Albums, either her own stuff or Roxette’s stuff, it never took her long to do something new and especially not more than 3 years.. Also, in Sweden Marie is a Superstar and that Fiona, not many people actually do know of her...
Is it so bad to have a different opion on something? cowboy was not even attacking anyone here.. why react like that? What about freedom of speech?
:-)
coyboyusa said on January 31, 2005 17:31:
whats wrong with us? Hmm, lets se she earned an estimated 20 million for a 4 record deal, regardless if the albums ever sell, she new the market she was going into and her ” niche” style isn’t always going to be popular. This is the girl who’s video for criminal was borderline kiddie porn and u want to feel sorry for her, thats you option not mine
ChrisWilliams said on January 31, 2005 17:46:
It’s a shame that this Fiona girl (I’ve never heard of her before, but am taking great interest in this topic) is being controlled by the record company. It *is* a great shame that artists cannot release what they deem to be their best material.
However, like an LP, there’s a flipside.
The recording industry is just that: An industry. It seems that Sony have waited a long time for follow-ups on past occasions, meaning her fanbase (on the whole) loses interest. Look at Roxette - Their break killed them in the biggest music markets!
If Sony want Fiona to put out a certain style of music, she can either heed their requests or face the consequences of losing her record deal.
At the end of the day, Sony is Fiona’s boss. And you’ve gotta do what your boss tells you.
Jud (moderator) said on January 31, 2005 20:31:
@ Roxhard: you are complaining about people flaming you in other threads yet here you are attacking those who don’t have your very same opinion (as eBay very well pointed out) and decide to express it. Let’s please just have a flame-free conversation and not get into personal attacks. Thanks :) That people don’t like Fiona, well, it’s just an opinion. I personally have no clue who Fiona is so have no opinion about her music/future.
As a matter of fact, Coyboyusa has received a couple of “warning” (in emails and other forms) in the past and - if you would have been around long enough - you would know there’s been a change, a big big change. The only thing that didn’t change is actually the spelling :D (coy, just joking :P). I tell you, his replies are ones of the lightest you can get ;)
RoxHard said on February 1, 2005 04:55:
@ eBay:
I don’t see why using Marie was a bad example. It has nothing to do with the time it took for Fiona Apple to make the album. And, even if it did – that wouldn’t matter. Marie took ages to release The Change after her last album (4 years after her Best Of album, and it was ages before her last official album).
People in Sweden may think Marie is a superstar, and it’s the same in America for Fiona Apple. Her albums have constantly sold well in America.
“Why react like that?”
With regards to Coyboyusa... you might wanna remember what I told ya – cause I swear you’re gonna wanna quote them when you too get sooo sick of his annoying little useless comments. It’s not even like he knows what he talks about half the time. Just search around this front page of the off-topic forum, I swear you’ll start to see a lot what I’m talking about. “oooh, thys werrre soooooo gud whn theys fist cam ouut – I h8 them now”, “thiss new sogn iss jst a copy of their lasst one”. It’s like he can’t just let anything slide – he can never ignore a topic about someone he doesn’t like. He always has to stick his 2 Cents in everywhere. Trust me... you’ll get sick of it (that’s if you stick around long enough). :)
@ coyboyusa:
With regards to Fiona Apple getting a $20 advance for a 4 album deal – let me give you a lesson in the type of rubbish record companies do to their artist! They give their artists advances, and deduct all studio/promotion/touring costs from that advance. It’s not like Fiona got that $20m straight into her bank account! Chances are, she’s already worked a lot of that down. The rest of the stuff you talked about was rubbish! Yes, Criminal had nudity. IS THAT A SIN! Americans obviously don’t realise that, if you take off your shirt, and look in the mirror – oh yes! That’s a nipple! It’s not just celebrities and porns starts who have those things you know! And what about all of those other stupid videos out there on American MTV? All those rap videos?
@ Judith:
Infact, if you look closely, and read all of the other replies (instead of just searching every post I just make for retaliatory remarks), you’d notice that I’m NOT flaming – I am informing. There’s a big difference, you know! :)
And yes... I would like to actually read a flame-free topic on these pages of TDR. But it seems increasingly unlikely for that to happen nowadays.
Jud (moderator) said on February 1, 2005 07:16:
Roxhard, it is clear we both want flame-free threads, right so far? Just let me inform you about something that 99.9% of the cases makes the others think you are insulting and flaming them and 99.9% will end up with a flame.
One is this:
RoxHard 1/29/2005 21:05 Admin tools: Edit | Hide
Edited by: RoxHard (1/29/2005 21:06)
er... did you actually even read the article coyboy? you’re talking so much bs there...
Two more examples, even though the first one is rather light, so let’s better ignore it:
RoxHard 31/2005 07:33 Admin tools: Edit | Hide
Edited by: RoxHard (1/31/2005 07:35)
What’s wrong with you people?
...
And coyboyusa - you would obviously say “these new songs suck”. If you stated otherwise - you would be contradicting that __stupid little__ remark you just made. I have to tell you... this topic has been the only place where I’ve ever read that these songs WEREN’T fucking brilliant! So.. obviously, you’re wrong.
So I kindly ask you that as much as you ask free-flame threads and people to be nice/polite/whatever that’s not an insult to you, you please be polite to the others too. I would also like to ask you to please don’t use such words as “fucking” and similar - or you run the risk of getting an explanatory email from Lars ;) Thank you for your cooperation.
eBay said on February 1, 2005 08:53:
@RoxHard
I have been following everything on TDR for the last 3 years, sometimes even on a daily basis. So, I know what coyboy is like and I do not have any problem with him or his responses in the different Forums here at all. I have to say, I quite like his style, he doesn’t say Yes and Amen to everything, he has got his own Opinion on things, nothing wrong with that.
coyboyusa said on February 1, 2005 19:00:
actually judith i never got any of those emails cause they were to my deleted aol account lol, and my spelling is usually attributed to my inability to type fast and gramatically correct, and honestly does anyone care about fiona apple anymore?
Jud (moderator) said on February 1, 2005 19:07:
but I am sure Lars has talked with you at least once ;)
RoxHard said on February 2, 2005 02:25:
OK Judith :)
I’m bored of squabeling.. :)
coyboy:
“honestly does anyone care about fiona apple anymore?”
Well, yes... according to this one website alone, some 28,000+ people care. There are tonnes more in the other forums I’ve posted the same message in :)
To anyone who hasn’t heard of Fiona - I offer a gift!
*drum roll*
THIS is the title track from this unreleased album, Extraordinary Machine. Seeing as how it was never officially released, I figure there’s no problem sharing it with all of you wonderful people. If I had the official album in my hands (if ANYONE did), I’m sure I wouldn’t need to do this... but Sony aren’t releasing this... so this isn’t, technically, publishing fraud - cause they don’t have the potential to actually make mony from it :)
So... here it is.
http://s24.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0YZ1NVCCR32UG04ZN3MTXNYL7E
Listen to it once, and you won’t think the song, as a whole, is very good. But the song gets stronger with every listen.
I’ll probably do the same with the other track “Better Version Of Me”, which is every bit as good, if not better, than Fast As You Can.
Cerchio said on March 19, 2005 13:11:
The full album can be found here:
http://www.geekdreams.com/mp3/fiona_apple/
Sony is mad to pass this up!
coyboyusa said on March 19, 2005 13:22:
dear god and u wonder why sony didnt’ want to release it it sounds liek a whole album of spoken word recorded over classical instrumenttation, its such a departure from her first album it would have inevitably flopped no loos at all :)
Cerchio said on March 19, 2005 13:30:
coyboyusa,
I just posted that link 18 minutes ago. I had downloaded up to track 6 by the time I posted that link here. Are you telling me you downloaded and listened to a whole 48 minute long album in 18 minutes? I couldn’t do that and I’m even on Broadband!
I’m listening to track 2 right now (Red, Red, Red) - and it’s better than Criminal!
Cerchio said on March 19, 2005 13:32:
I’ve just actually read this topic in full. Why is this place so hostile? You all seem to be taking meaningless things and making things seem way too big a deal.
You all need to calm down a little bit :)
coyboyusa said on March 22, 2005 15:17:
for a song to be remotely successful on raido or mtv it has to catch you ear, the forst 2 minutes of every song sounds liek a deprssion induced haze she sounds unaffected un inspired just as per would say BLAH the girl needs therapy
ChrisWilliams said on March 23, 2005 08:40:
That’s one thing that annoys me - Fans of various artists flooding forums of other musical acts with their trivialities.
Another thing annoys me is that I’m trapped in France with a keyboard that isn’t formatted in the same way as the English ones.
A bientôt.
Sparvogamarie said on March 23, 2005 14:33:
Chris you have a good point, I just read through the threads on off-topic and a huge amount of them are about other artists. It seems to be a popular thing for fans to go around to all the message boards to promote their fave artist!
But I thought this one was kinda interesting, because it could easily happen to Rox (well it kinda already did happen to them in the US!) It sucks that a company can just shelve an album because they don’t think it sounds right, at least they could release it in limited amounts so that the fans can buy it. Record companys have no clue when it comes to good music, when Rox first started nobody would give them a contract because they didn’t have the right sound, but they proved with The Look that sounding different can be an advantage. Who knows, this Fiona album might have been a huge hit but they won’t give it a chance!
Cerchio said on March 24, 2005 01:42:
Aren’t you free to talk about what you want in the off-topic forum?
LittleSpooky said on March 24, 2005 06:18:
RoxHard: I don’t give two winks about Fiona Apple... never have, never will.
Folks... demz da breaks in the music biz. You wanna get anywhere with your label, you either do what they say or float. If you got money to put out your own album on you own label... go for it.
carbon_boy said on March 24, 2005 07:21:
@ Chris & Sparvogamarie: This IS the Off Topic part of the forum.... I guess if they want to promote their favourite beverage or toothpaste then so be it (according to the way things have been going lately, that is). And “they” aren’t flooding this forum promoting their fave bands. Fiona Apple is just one of RoxHard’s fave artists. Just like Roxette.
Didn’t know we are only suppose to chat about Roxette and no other bands/artists. If thats the case, then why the Off Topic forum? For us just to list our birthdays, to guess who’s going to reply to your message, to state our countries, etc etc.... I don’t think that was Lars’s idea.
In fact, seeing that this IS a music forum (yes, about Roxette), I’d say that promoting other bands etc in the Off Topic part of this forum is just as justified as some of these other time consuming and irritating discussions that’s been flooding Off Topic since the beginning.
And just to add my 2cents worth regarding Fiona Apple and RoxHard: He adores Roxette and just brought this to our attention. He didn’t need to get flamed for it, in fact hopefully this will inform some of the people out there how hard it is for artists these days to put an album together.
I have to say, I miss him on TDR after he left (for the same reason so many other people have). I guess I’m just one of those who couldn’t really care about being flamed, bitched at by the moderators, etc. And have learned that no one in this forum sits on the same side regarding anything.
Anyways, c ya.
Sparvogamarie said on March 24, 2005 13:49:
Wow. Bitter. I don’t have a problem talking about other artists, and neither Chris or I argue that this is off-topic and we can talk about anything here. If you pay attention you will see I have a topic going about other artists too so maybe do your homework before you start bitching.
I think the point Chris was making is that fans of certain artists are going around and promoting their fave band on the forums of other artists. I know a lot of Rox fans do the same especially on Abba and AOB forums. It’s one thing when a Rox fan comes here and starts a discussion about an artist they like but it’s another thing when people are coming just to advertise someone’s new album or promote an artist. I think that is what Chris was saying and it’s certainly what I said.
carbon_boy said on March 24, 2005 14:11:
@ Sparvogamarie: “Chris you have a good point, I just read through the threads on off-topic and a huge amount of them are about other artists. It seems to be a popular thing for fans to go around to all the message boards to promote their fave artist!”
Sparvogamarie said on March 24, 2005 14:43:
Not gonna get into an argument here, but I don’t think Chris or I specifically said this Fiona topic was bad, just that a lot of people are going around and promoting other artists. I got the impression from Chris’ post that he was speaking generally about fans that are doing that, and I was agreeing because I know Roxette fans are doing that quite often, trying to get attention to Rox from fans of other artists. In my post I said that the Fiona topic was interesting because it could easily happen to Roxette and I think I said something like maybe this album would be a big hit, so I don’t think it can be said that I had a problem with the topic. I can’t speak for Chris but I didn’t take that impression from his post either.
TinyBubbles said on January 29, 2005 13:09:
I’m a big fiona fan as well. Shame shame.