Artist: Nellie McKay
Genre(s):
Comedy
Pop
Jazz
Discography:
Obligatory Villagers
Year: 2007
Tracks: 9
Pretty Little Head
Year: 2006
Tracks: 23
Get Away From Me
Year: 2004
Tracks: 9
CD 2
Year: 2004
Tracks: 9
Aim Away from Me, the claim of singer/songwriter Nellie McKay's debut album, was a play on two titles by romantic female vocalists world Health Organization became popular in the former 2000s: Norah Jones' Get along Away with Me and Jane Monheit's Get along Dream with Me. But spell McKay shares some of Jones' and Monheit's influences -- vocal malarky, floorshow, pre-rock Brill Building pop, flashlight singing -- and has some things in common with them melodically, it would be a huge error to lout her in with Jones, Monheit, and Diana Krall. Those malarky or jazz-influenced start artists lean to be romantically satisfying, whereas McKay's lyrics hind end be every flake as cutting, nervy, and bitter as Alanis Morissette or Pink -- and to lout McKay in with Jones, Monheit, and Krall ignores the fact that her work is typical and imposingly unorthodox.
McKay, world Health Organization is too a gifted piano player, brings an unbelievable combination of influences to her work, which isn't easy to categorize. The New York City resident is relevant to pop/rock, just she is besides relevant to cabaret, traditional pop, and vocal jazz. Tin Pan Alley, Kurt Weill, Cole Porter, Annie Ross, Peggy Lee, and Billie Holiday have unnatural her writing (either straight or indirectly), simply so make Dory Previn and Randy Newman (the latter a sponsor comparing), the Beatles, and hip-hop. McKay, in fact, shares Newman's taste for lyrics that ar misanthropical and sarcastic as well as dark-humored; like Newman, McKay knows how to laugh at the world even when she's complaintive roughly how screwed up it is -- and she lavatory be incredibly clever and witty.
McKay was born in London, England, on April 13, 1984, only spent to the highest degree of her early life in the United States. At the age of deuce, McKay (an only minor) touched with her mother (actress Robin Pappas) to New York City -- and the deuce of them lived in Manhattan's Harlem section until 1994, when they touched cicily Isabel Fairfield to Olympia, WA. After that, they lived in the Poconos in northeastern Pennsylvania, only in 2000, they returned to N.Y.C. so that McKay could see the Manhattan School of Music. After falling out, McKay briefly flirted with standup comedy just gave it up and made music her elementary nidus. McKay began performing around Manhattan in the early 2000s, and for a patch, she was managed by folk-rocker Lach (wHO much set-aside her at the Sidewalk Café in the East Village).
McKay's gigs at Manhattan clubs like the Sidewalk Café and the Fez earned her a small East Coast following, and in 2003, she signed with Columbia. Other labels had verbalised interestingness, including Virgin and Blue Note, only she felt that Columbia had the greatest savvy of her musical vision. Nonetheless, McKay had some originative differences with the label; she wanted to call her debut album either Smuggled America or Penis Envy, and Columbia disliked both. But eventually, McKay and Columbia in agreement on the title Get Away from Me. Produced and engineered by Geoff Emerick -- topper known for his operate with the Beatles -- Get Away from Me was released in February 2004. Although it made the year-end lists of many critics, creative battle between McKay and Columbia only continued.
Sparring over producers and direction for her sophomore album eventually resulted in McKay funding the recordings herself; the upshot, titled Pretty Little Head, was due to be released in early 2006, just McKay was let go and the record album was dropped from Columbia's release agenda. At the same time, McKay was fussy rehearsing for co-starring role in a Broadway production of The Threepenny Opera with Alan Cummings, Ana Gasteyer, and Cyndi Lauper. Pretty Little Head at last surfaced in October of 2006, released on McKay's own Hungry Mouse tag and overseen by the indie spinART. Less than one year later on, McKay returned with a 30-minute illumination entitled Obligatory Villagers.
