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posted by chrysb on Tue Jan 17, 2006 5:06 pm
At Mercury Lounge December 6, Nellie McKay rolled out a dozen songs from her excellent and then forthcoming new album Pretty Little Head.
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The new songs sounded great, although relatively smooth and polite compared to her equally excellent 2004 debut, Get Away From Me—a sui generis mix of show tunes, jazz throwbacks, bossa nova, Latin ragtime, and one ferocious rap. It didn't help relations with Columbia that McKay insisted the label release the album on two nine-cut CDs, which included five tracks she shelled out $30,000 of her own money to record. Still, McKay's droll, detail-drenched songs about New Ageism, male chauvinists, and the Harlem street where she was mugged as a child earned the then 19-year-old mad love from music glossies, Web critics, and NPR.
A month and two days after the Mercury gig, Nellie joined an equally devoted crowd of 30 at a Columbus Circle protest against the use of carriage animals, organized by the League of Humane Voters. She held a candle—the event doubled as a vigil for a horse who broke free from its hansom cab and was killed after colliding with a car on Ninth Avenue—and sheepishly assented to a request that she lead the crowd in "Give Peace a Chance." By that time Pretty Little Head was supposed to be out, but its absence from stores didn't much concern her. "Not a day goes by that I don't wonder why I'm in the music business," she said. "I'd rather be doing this full-time."
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McKay delivered Pretty Little Head—all 23 tracks—last summer, when Columbia was shooting for an October release. An impasse arose when Columbia proposed a 16-track version. "We had great meetings with Will Botwin," McKay says. "I thought it just got a little heavy. It seemed like it was mostly an artistic decision. It seemed strange because it wasn't based on financial reasons."
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And yet, McKay attends up to three animal rights protests a week. Recently she's shelled out money for prosthetic surgery for Asian children with cleft lips, for an animal sanctuary in Pennsylvania, and to adopt a donkey in California and a cow upstate. She's working, too, composing 70 minutes of music for a film called The Amazing True Story of a Teenage Single Mom, and she begins Threepenny rehearsals in February. As we're leaving a Times Square restaurant—she wanted to find someplace "dirty and cheap," or at least a joint with vegetarian gravy, but it was cold—she taps my arm. "Please don't say I'm young in a good way," she says. "I've been really conscious about ageism. You don't have an anti-Irish cream, but you have anti-aging cream. It's not right. Being old is beautiful. Thank you."
Read the full article here
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posted by chrysb on Fri Dec 23, 2005 11:16 pm
NEW YORK (Billboard) - Less than two weeks before the planned January 3 release of her second album, singer/songwriter
Nellie McKay has voluntarily left her Columbia Records label following a public dispute about the length of the project, sources told Billboard.com.
The fate of the album, "Pretty Little Head," was unknown; a spokesperson for the artist had no comment and McKay could not be reached.
McKay had insisted the label release her 23-song, 65-minute version, while Columbia sent out promotional copies of a 16-song, 48-minute album. Reviews of the set, which features guest appearances from
Cyndi Lauper and k.d. lang, have already begun appearing in music magazines.
At recent shows, McKay had given out the personal email address of Columbia chairman Will Botwin from the stage, encouraging fans to press for the release of the longer version of the album. Botwin left the company earlier this month.
A concert DVD, "Live at the Independent," was also scheduled to hit stores on January 3 but Billboard.com understands that release is also on hold for the time being.
"Pretty Little Head" is the follow-up to McKay's acclaimed 2004 double-disc debut, "Get Away From Me," which has sold more than 104,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
The lone show on McKay's schedule is January 22 at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Va. From there, she will move on to her Broadway debut as Polly Peachum in a new version of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's "The Threepenny Opera." Previews of the show begin March 24, while the opening is set for April 20. Lauper recently joined the cast of the production, replacing "Sopranos" star Edie Falco.
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posted by Bean on Mon Aug 29, 2005 6:59 pm
| Columbia wrote: |
PRETTY LITTLE HEAD featuring duets with Cyndi Lauper and k.d. lang will be in stores Tuesday, October 18.
Featuring a kaleidoscopic selection of tracks culled from 23 new songs written by McKay for the album, Pretty Little Head premieres duets with Cyndi Lauper ("Beecharmer") and k.d. lang ("We Had It Right") as well as an assortment of provocative new compositions including "Columbia Is Bleeding" ("...it's turned into a real rock tune..."), "Cupcake" ("...about gay marriage..."), and "The Big One" ("...about a tenant's rights activist...").
Working with a group of "wonderful musicians," Nellie McKay sings and plays piano--as well as cello, vibes, and synthesizer--on Pretty Little Head.
Stay tuned for the premiere of a new track! |
That's the official press release, and I haven't found anything else about it. Some of the songs on it are pretty old, but they've changed a lot since the old versions I've heard.
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