By Zachary Swickey
Last weekend, Epic Records’ notorious chairman and CEO LA Reid sent Fiona Apple fans into a frenzy when he tweeted that new music was coming from the icon “in the next few weeks.” While we really wanted to believe that, it did seem a bit out of left-field considering there has been absolutely no word about the album from the label previously, and an Epic Records spokeswoman has already started raining on our hopeful parade.
When Time shared our doubts, they reached out to Epic for comment and their spokeswoman clarified Reid’s statements. While a new Fiona record will indeed be coming out in 2012, she states that Reid’s tweets were “taken a little bit out of context” and that we won’t be getting new music in the next few weeks after all.
“It’ll absolutely be this year,” she told the Times, “but timing-wise, I don’t know exactly when.”
Not sure if “taken a little bit out of context” is the right way to put it since impending new music from Fiona is exactly what Reid said was imminent (and he’s the freakin’ CEO!).
Despite Apple’s incredible talent – being one of the few “vintage-y” singers left in our time (and my personal favorite voice in music, period) – her last release had complications just like her next one seems to be having. When Fiona began tracking her last disc Extraordinary Machine back in 2002, it took three years of legal label-limbo and fan outcry before it eventually saw the light of day. The label even had the album mastered by another producer after being unsatisfied with the work of Fiona’s go-to producer, Jon Brion.
Echoing the same fiasco, during a rare performance in LA last year a fan shouted at Fiona to play some new tunes to which she tersely responded, “I can’t remember any of my new songs because they’ve been done for a f***king year.”
Well, that’s not a very good sign.