Get Away from Me, Nellie McKay
I love her more quirky songs and her voice is great but I was a little disappointed that a good number of the songs seemed a bit more traditional in style. However, her lyrics are very funny.

Yet more cool music and lyrics from NYC
I have waited this long, expecting to find at least one of Nellie McKay's songs fading, dull, loosing vividness but yet the entire album "Get Away from Me" remains a perfect fit for our time. The superbly interesting music themes and rather frank, catchy lyrics continue to evolve in the next "Pretty Little Head" album. It's really difficult to recommend a particular song; Nellie simply is a great, entertaining performer.

Skip this one - buy her newer albums instead.
I'm not quite sure what happened on this album. McKay or the record label must have gotten a strange and very bad idea that adding a component of rap music to other genres will make the music popular.

I guess you can't blame whoever thought this up since it seems to have been successful with acts like Linkin Park or Red Hot Chili Peppers and so on. So, you can understand where they got this idea. But it doesn't work here and it ruins this album. There is still some of the "rapping" in the newer albums but it's not as prominent and its blended in better.

There were other aspects of this album that I found unpalatable. I've forgotten exactly what, but I'm not going to dig the album up and put myself through having to listen to it again for the sake of writing a fully detailed review. The music itself is also better in the newer albums.

Bottom line, even though I wanted to like this, I couldn't stand listening to this album. I'd recommend against purchasing this album and go straight to the other Nellie McKay albums.

This Just Gets Better Every Time I Listen To It
This CD is so hard to describe. A blurb on the cover says Nellie is like Doris Day combined with Eminem, but I think it's more like Ricky Lee Jones and Kate Bush meet Dave Frishberg and Randy Newman.

There are elements of Jones' funky jazz-like vocals, Bush's weird swoopy wails, but even more of Frishberg's and Newman's melody hooks combined with witty satirical word play. Nothing is sacred here, and nothing can be taken at face value.

Nellie drops the F bomb here and there, but never gratuitously. She picks her phrases with a poetic, if somewhat kooky, precision. If that sounds contradictory, it is. And that's Nellie through and through.

Nellie is a much better singer than either Jones or Bush. When she lays down a slow piano jazz tune (I Wanna Get Married or Really) it sounds like the real deal, however tongue in cheek the sentiment may be. There are also goofy bouncy songs about her dead Cat (Ding Dong) and newly found Dog (The Dog Song) that sound like true slice-of-life episodes, though the word play and imagery are so hilarious it's hard to know for sure. There's some great politcal rap (Sari) and swing jazz cum good natured male bashing (It's a Pose).

But the thing I find about CD is that repeated listening is repaid with greater and greater appreciation of the musical quality and lyrical creativity on display. These songs will crawl in your head and live there. And you'll be happy about that.

Rush to Nellie!
This young woman's first CD of music in nothing short of terrific from beginnning to end. You must buy this CD and listen to it over and over again. How could you not? It's full of wit and delight.
An artist to watch, listen to, and see perform!
The best of 2004 and that's no lie.