If there's a better single word than 'joyful' to describe how Nellie McKay's music makes me feel, I haven't thought of it yet - I love the quirky melodies, the independent mindedness, the weirdly undulating lyrical streams, the attitude and anger wrapped up in her wildly ricocheting, frequently foul-mouthed, off the wall singer-songwriter/vocal jazz/old-style pop/hip-hop/street poetry fusion.
Get Away From Me was the red-haired chanteuse's debut, released by Sony/Columbia in 2004, and as far as I'm aware it's still her only official long-playing record (I haven't been following the Pretty Little Head story, but I don't imagine that it's hit the stores in either version yet). It's a double album, although with a total running length of just over an hour, it would've easily fit on to a single disc; somehow, this seems in keeping with what McKay's doing rather than being an annoying affectation. Maybe it's because her music is, for all of its peculiar detours and modernisms, often recognisably rooted in the classic Tin Pan Alley style of songwriting, not least in the way that piano is the dominant (non-vocal) instrument.
So anyway, I think that the advance version of Pretty Little Head that's been floating around is the better album - it's probably marginally brighter and more sprightly than Get Away From Me as well as less diffuse, and its high points are higher. But Get Away From Me is damn good too, if not as striking or as focused as what was to come - it's just a joy to listen to, gleefully idiosyncratic, cheeky, colourful and fresh.
