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Sep 26
General, Music, Podcast, Web 12 Comments
* Nellie McKay’s new album is finally coming out in October. …and there was much rejoicing. (Thanks for the pointer, Trip!)
* And don’t forget that the new Weird Al Yankovic album drops today! (Yeah, that’s right. I said “drops.” I’m hip to MTV’s jargon, yo. Would you prefer I use “streets?”)
* The 50 Worst Things to happen to music.
* Memorizing multiplication tables is more informative to a growing mind than this diagonal method of multiplication.
* What do you want to be when you grow up? A podcast entrepeneur. This girl’s making $40,000 a year working part time — and she’s still in high school.
* My People: Google Maps takes picture of car accident aftermath and miles-long traffic jam in Belgium.
* This week’s DVD list highlights will be up a little later today. It’s next week’s release list that has all the highlights, though. . .
Sep 26, 2006 @ 11:29:02
So is that the full album up on iTunes? I could swear I heard it was 2 discs.
Sep 26, 2006 @ 12:26:39
There’s only one disc of music. If you buy it in the stores, though, it’s in a DualDisc format, which will give you six more songs with video of them, as I recall.
Sep 26, 2006 @ 14:28:17
I saw Nellie in concert not two weeks ago, and she denied that there was a release date in the works. I wonder if things changed, or if she was just being secretive.
In any case, Reuters confirms the story, and says that the album is “on McKay’s Hungry Mouse label, will be spread over two discs, and will include a 44-page color booklet. It will be marketed and manufactured by indie label spinART Records.”
By the way, if you get a chance, go see Nellie in concert. And Augie, you’d probably find yourself in the same situation as myself, feeling like you’re the most conservative person in the room.
Sep 26, 2006 @ 15:06:17
Loren – Given what I’ve read about Nellie, I think Al Gore would be the most conservative person in the room at a random McKay concert. . . One of her small concerts was recorded and aired on local cable TV last year. Sadly, I think it got accidentally deleted off the TiVo before I could burn it to DVD for archival purposes.
Sep 26, 2006 @ 15:20:53
A few years ago, I saw Nellie perform as the opening act to a Barenaked Ladies/Alanis Morrissette double bill.
I wasn’t impressed, to be honest. When she started barking like a dog in one of her songs, the people around me in my row looked at each other with very quizzical looks.
Sep 26, 2006 @ 15:54:20
Phil – “The Dog Song.” Yes, it’s an odd song, but she’s a staunch animal rights activist type. It’s definitely a quirky sound that not everyone will like, but I think it’s great stuff. Hear it and more at NPR:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1700688
This might be the only NPR link I ever trumpet on this site. .
Sep 26, 2006 @ 19:11:46
The dual-disc doesn’t have any more songs; it just has the songs in 5.1, and videos, and a documentary, and karaoke version, and other goodies.
If absolutly all you want are the songs are the songs, iTunes should do. But you know you want the videos and such.
Still listening to it for the first time; I’ll probably bore people with my opinion once I’ve properly absorbed all the glories of the disc.
Sep 26, 2006 @ 20:05:17
For anyone interested, Circuit City has “Straight Outta Lynwood” for $9.99 this week.
Sep 27, 2006 @ 00:41:57
I was slightly underwhelmed on my first listen; but I think most of that is because three of my four favorite tracks (including “You’re Pitiful”) were released before I got the CD. (The fourth is “Virus Alert”) Considered as a whole, it’s a nice mix.
With that said, I found the Polka singularly underwheming. I only recognized a couple of the songs it was riffing on.
Loved the batch of videos.
“Pancreas” is interesting; it’s one of the few songs by Al where the emphasis seems to be on the style parody more than the lyrics.
Sep 27, 2006 @ 08:07:37
Eric – the polka suffers a bit from not having a theme this time, I think, but I did recognize more than half the songs, which surprised me. Haven’t seen the videos yet. “Close But No Cigar” is a bit of a clunker. And the “Drive Thru” song won’t have much replay value, though it’s a spectacle of inane insanity. I’ll be doing a full review here later today, I hope.
Overall, though, I’m impressed.
Sep 27, 2006 @ 16:40:39
By pure chance, I just stumbled upon a note I wrote regarding that Nellie McKay performance:
“And I wish Nellie McKay was instrumental only. I heard her open for BNL last night, and she’s got some great piano licks. Classical, jazz, ragtime all in one — and then she had to ruin it by singing. Didn’t like her voice at all. Seemed flat all the time, and she frequently sang high notes that were out of her range.”
Having reread this, I will concede that she could have had a bad night. I’ll take a listen via that NPR link after I get back from my vacation next week; maybe my opinion will change.
Sep 28, 2006 @ 08:43:40
Actually, I think she’s much more of a recording performer than a live one. There were even problems in the cable concert I saw. She’s very young yet and still learning. She still needs the multiple takes and editing of a studio.