Pretty Little Head
Few recording artists follow their double-disc debut with another double-disc collection. Nellie McKay isn't the typical recording artist. The singer/songwriter/activist is a restless talent--with a steely backbone. When Columbia refused to release this 23-track set, McKay took a hike and put it out on her own Hungry Mouse imprint. (The song "Columbia Is Bleeding" isn't about her former label, rather the treatment of lab animals at the Ivy League institution.) McKay's creative restlessness brings to mind Robert Pollard and Matt and Eleanor Friedberger, not so much in sound, but in the sense that--for better or for worse--there's nothing she won't try. In "G.E.S." and "Mama & Me," she raps. In the latter, she quips, "See I been livin' with my mama/since I was an embryo/never had Nintendo/saw a lot of Brecht though." In "Tipperary," the British-born New Yorker torches up the joint music hall-style. Then in "Yodel," she, well, yodels. What holds it all together is McKay's flexible, appealing pipes. There's a reason she was cast as Polly Peachum in the Broadway revival ofThe Threepenny Opera--the petite blonde oozes charisma. McKay's actress mother, Robin Pappas, served as executive producer onPretty Little Head, which features charming duets with fellow iconoclasts k.d. lang ("We Had It Right") andThreepennyco-star Cyndi Lauper ("Beecharmer"). As withGet Away from Me, the album is like a seven-course meal; overwhelming if taken in all at once, but there's a little something here for pretty much everyone.--Kathleen C. Fennessy