Even though national news sources are focusing more on “infotainment” than actual news, and at least one political party has created a network to promote its agenda as news, I do take some comfort that the traditional channels for information can be bypassed via the Internet.

Come up with a cute cartoon like JibJab often does and get millions of viewers without owning a TV or radio station. Or, in the case of Fiona Apple, if the record label won’t release your album, do it yourself.

Fiona Apple’s third album, Extraordinary Machine has been finished for two years, but the record label will not release it. Somehow a copy ended up on the web to generally favorable reviews. Using my new exposure to BitTorrent, I decided to go find a copy and give it a listen.

At least I now understand the label’s hesitation.

Apple’s first album Tidal was the only album I ever bought because of those “headphone” stations in a record store. I forget where I was, but I had to kill some time and I wandered into one of those chain record stores with selected CDs available for listening. I don’t know why I chose to listen to that album, since although Fiona is attractive I don’t think the picture on the album cover was that seductive. I think it was her name, “Apple”.

Anyway, I listened to several tracks on Tidal and bought it on the spot.

A few weeks later, the song “Criminal” on that album started getting a lot of air play, and pretty soon Apple was on MTV. In today’s youth targeted marketing of music, the video had her slinking around in lingerie like a brunette Brittany Spears, and it totally turned me off to her music. Her songs seemed more mature to me than the marketing image, and I just never pursued her second album.

This third album is very raw and angry sounding, but the bottom line is it isn’t all that good. The vocals seem off, “pitchy” as Randy of American Idol fame likes to say, and the driving piano I liked so much in the first album is missing from most tracks.

I welcome the idea of being able to get music off the Internet. When the Internet was fairly new, I saw a statement that, on the web, everyone is a writer and no one is an editor. Perhaps an editor could have made Extraordinary Machine less ordinary.