Street Names / Off-Genre: Manhattan Avenue

Nellie McKay: Manhattan Avenue

[purchase]

Is is possible to go off-genre just minutes into your first album, in the transition from the first track to the second? Nellie McKay certainly gave it her best shot, opening 2004 debut Get Away From Me - the title a play on Norah Jones' Come Away With Me - with bouncy, radioready Contemporary Pop hit David, then suddenly transitioning from layered vocals and reggae-tinged beat to this torchy and smooth jazz vocal piano-bar tribute to the busy, seedy Brooklyn thoroughfare.

The rest of the album is more like the former than the latter, of course. To put the exception so far forward is shocking, and oh, so perfectly Nellie.

Ghosts and Zombies: (Another) Zombie

Nellie McKay: Zombie

[purchase]

This is obviously a completely different song from our last Zombie. Nellie McKay starts us off with a walking (dead) bass line, and continues in a jazzy mood. She eloquently explains why it’s not always a good idea to go for a stroll in a Southern swamp.

The Bountiful Feast: A Dessert Sampler

Townes Van Zandt and Blaze Foley: Girl Scout Cookies

[live and unpurchaseable]

Sarah McLachlan: Ice Cream (live)

[purchase]

Crowded House: Chocolate Cake

[purchase]

Nellie McKay: Cupcake

[purchase]

David Wilcox: Wildberry Pie

[purchase]

It's a tradition of sorts here at Star Maker Machine to end the week with a "clearinghouse" post, one which throws a few disparate songs up to give a sense of the range of possibility still sitting on our "also ran" lists as the clock runs out.

Fittingly, I managed to come up with a few rare and delicious dessert selections for us to fill in the corners a bit as we transition to our upcoming theme; just as fittingly, this coming week's theme will give us a chance to offer up second helpings for those favorite songs which, for one reason or another, never really made it into the themes where they best belonged. Small portions only, folks; you're liable to burst...