Consumer Guide Album

Nellie McKay: Obligatory Villagers [Hungry Mouse, 2007]
In an antirockist moment when faerie folkies airier than Joanna Newsom and disco dollies emptier than Rihanna are thought to promise a braver, freer future, why isn't this manifestly hypertalented young person a generational hero? Couldn't have any connection, could it, to the fact that no fewer than three netcrits--all, as it happens, men--don't understand that the opening laugh line, "Feminists don't have a sense of humor," is the well-turned piece of satire that makes everyone I play it for giggle? I agree--she's scattered, unfinished, self-indulgent. But she's also ebullient, funny and political. Her future looks brave and free to me. A-