[sxesven]

Originally Posted by Halla

I wonder what are the real reasons behind Sony's decision not to release this album , I can't believe those reasons they've given so far. There has to be something behind the scenes going on.

Well, you can take this into consideration to begin with:

1997's Tidal sold 2.7 million copies and 1999's When the Pawn ... sold 917,000—it would be a major disappointment.

source

I was kind of surprised myself to see Tidal actually sold three times more than When The Pawn, since Tidal is obviously the weaker album. Then again, even if Sony 'd only manage to sell one third of the copies that When The Pawn sold, they'd still sell 300.000 albums, which is obviously more profitable than shelving the album. The article that this quote comes from is a nice read though, although it seems to focus way too much on how commercially appealing Fiona actually is, which just shouldn't be the question. See for yourself, as I quote from it:

In other words, Extraordinary Machine is just the sort of adventurous, critic-pleasing album that's nearly impossible to sell to a mainstream audience.

Last quote, an interesting one:

The label's most recent statement, issued earlier this month, read: "Epic is continuing to work with Fiona's management toward the release of this project.

Hope, I guess. Still though, if it still doesn't get released, Fiona should just try and buy the rights to the material and get it released on a different, smaller label.

Chances are she'll get picked up by another lable, I wouldnt worry about it.

I'm sure there's a lot of labels out there that'd love to release 'Extraordinary Machine', but it's just that Sony has the rights to the album. That's the big problem.