Title: Gee Whiz: The Get Away From Me Demos Artist: Nellie McKay Label: Omnivore Recordings Product Type: VINYL LP UPC: 810075114980 Genre: Jazz Release Date: 2025-05-09 Number of Discs: 1
Vinyl LP pressing. Previously unreleased demos from the acclaimed singer/songwriter. "I was attracted to the lyrics immediately," says legendary Beatles engineer and producer Geoff Emerick, on the demos for what would become Nellie McKay's 2004 critically-lauded debut album, Get Away From Me. "Her level of maturity at such a young age is astounding. You come across an artist of this caliber once every 10 or 15 years. And I don't do a lot of projects these days unless something really stands out like this did." Get Away From Me landed on the Billboard Top 200, received four stars from Rolling Stone, and Nellie made her network television debut on The Late Show with David Letterman. In 2020, Salon hailed the record as "one of the great pop albums of the early 21st century." Revisiting the album in 2024, reviewers remarked: "... anger and discombobulation reflect the violence happening in her name via her tax dollars... Two decades later, the circumstances and names differ, but the anguish remains the same, as politicians, dictators, and other killers make life hell for ordinary citizens. The word "brilliant' comes to mind, as does the acknowledgement-the reality-that the average listener can't deal with this many ideas, lyrical and musical. Gee Whiz: The Get Away From Me Demos collects Nellie's recordings which became that landmark album, composed, performed, and produced by Nellie, and sequenced identically to the original record.
