Nellie McKay: Get Away From Me : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

In Nellie McKay's cabaret, would-be show tunes mingle with rock, pop, disco, reggae, blaxploitation grooves and anything else this effusive prankster can spew out of her untethered imagination. Comparisons to fellow music-school dropout Norah Jones are inevitable, but the British-born, Harlem-raised songwriter answers them with droll wit (remember the title of Jones' debut?) and restless chutzpah.

Like Jones, McKay's keyboard and crooning abilities clearly come schooled in jazz: During the verses of "Toto Dies," her smooth sigh evokes Peggy Lee as her woozy melody suggests a bygone tango. But then she puts on a hard-rocker voice for the chorus and drops unlikely couplets such as "Yeah, I'll have my coffee black/Hey, look, we're bombing Iraq." McKay's penchant for offhand satire and warped musical-comedy allusions aligns her more closely to skewed songsmiths such as Randy Newman and Van Dyke Parks. And she's only nineteen.

Produced by Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick, her double-disc, hour-long debut focuses so intently on the born entertainer's voice, verbiage and ivory tinkling that many of the album's wacky incidental pleasures -- like the angelic choir of overdubbed McKays that sigh through "Ding Dong" or the dizzying vibraphone solo in "Baby Watch Your Back" -- take a while to announce themselves. Then there are startling tracks such as "Waiter," where she sifts through her mixed feelings upon reading that the war in Iraq is allegedly over. A sucker for ridiculous rhymes -- as lines such as "No Zen guide to men will help you fend off the brethren" in her rap tune "Sari" attest -- McKay mixes pathos and goofiness with egghead glee. Most cabaret is weepy: McKay trades its tears for a wink.