Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	84/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Blender
Entertainment Weekly	A
The Guardian
NME	7/10
Pitchfork Media	6.2/10
Q
Rolling Stone
Spin	B
The Village Voice	A−

Extraordinary Machine is the third album by American singer-songwriter Fiona Apple, released by Epic Records in the United States on October 4, 2005. Produced by Jon Brion, it was expected to be released in 2003 but was delayed several times by the record label without explanation, leading to speculation that a dispute had arisen over its commercial appeal. The controversy surrounding the album and leaked recordings of the Jon Brion sessions were the subject of substantial press attention, as well as a highly publicized fan-led campaign to see the album officially released. In collaboration with producers Mike Elizondo and Brian Kehew, Apple re-recorded the album over 2004 and 2005, and it was eventually released more than three years after the original recording sessions began. In 2009, Extraordinary Machine was named the 49th best album of the 2000s by Rolling Stone magazine. The album was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album in 2006. It was eventually certified gold and sold 600,000 copies in the U.S.

After completing a concert tour in support of her second album When the Pawn... (1999) in 2000, Fiona Apple relocated to Los Angeles. "The first couple of years [after Pawn], I didn't have anything left in me to write about ... I just figured if the songs came to me, they came to me, and if not, 'Oh, well, it's been fun'", she said. During her hiatus, Apple contemplated retiring from her recording career. In spring 2002 Apple and Jon Brion, her longtime friend and producer on When the Pawn, met for their weekly lunch meeting. Brion's five-year relationship with comedian Mary Lynn Rajskub had abruptly ended during the shooting of the Paul Thomas Anderson film Punch-Drunk Love (2002), which Brion was scoring. He reportedly "begged" Apple to make another album after being forced to watch hours of footage of Rajskub whilst working on the film: "I need work that can save me". Apple agreed, and Brion went to Apple's label, Epic Records, with strict stipulations (including no deadline), which the label eventually agreed to. A tentative November 2002 release date was then set.

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Wikipedia