Home Sweet Mobile Home

Nellie McKay | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 28, 2010)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Verve Forecast
• ASIN: B003XMKN9U
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,507 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Singer-songwriter Nellie McKay's fifth album, Home Sweet Mobile Home, will be released on Verve Records this September. Her second album for the label follows her 2009 album Normal As Blueberry Pie - A Tribute to Doris Day, which was selected by The New York Times, Huffington Post and The Village Voice as one of the best of the year.

Home Sweet Mobile Home is McKay's first album of all-original material since 2007's Obligatory Villagers, and has the musical wanderlust, lyrical playfulness and sharp point of view that has characterized her music since her breakthrough debut Get Away From Me. Songs from the new project were recently debuted during her NYC engagement at Feinstein's, and the New York Post noted that "songs like 'Bodega' and 'Caribbean Time' feature whimsical humor and social commentary that blended in beautifully alongside the standards from the Blueberry Pie album."

The new album, produced by McKay and Robin Pappas, was recorded in Los Angeles, New York, Jamaica and the Pocono Mountains and, even more than her previous albums, combines diverse musical moods and cultures.

"I have no idea how this album happened," says Nellie. "I guess I was looking for a sound to reflect our shrinking world and the bleed of culture crossing all kinds of borders." Reviewing a recent McKay show, Stephen Holden from The New York Times described her as a "vocal chameleon," and that varied musical palette is used to great effect on the 13 songs on Home Sweet Mobile Home.

McKay has released four critically acclaimed records and appeared on Broadway (winning a Theatre World Award for her role in the revival of The Threepenny Opera) and on film (acting and singing in P.S. I Love You). She also wrote and performed the song score for the Rob Reiner film Rumor Has It.

The Chase Brock Experience recently produced a ballet of her third album, Obligatory Villagers, while Nellie is currently playing opposite violin prodigy Philippe Quint in the independent film Downtown Express and contributing to the soundtrack for the upcoming Martin Scorsese HBO series Boardwalk Empire.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not My Favorite From Nellie, February 16, 2011

By 

B. Scheuring (Tempe, AZ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Home Sweet Mobile Home (Audio CD)

I really like Nellie McKay's music and I wish more people were aware of her talent. I was blown away by "Get Away From Me." I thought "Pretty Little Head" had its moments, but you had to search for them, and could have used some paring down. The "Rumor Has It..." songs never permeated me that much. Minute-for-minute and song-for-song, "Obligatory Villagers" is my favorite of hers to date. "Normal As Blueberry Pie" was okay, but it's something I'd have to force myself to listen to more than three or four times.

I was hoping "Home Sweet Mobile Home" would pick up where "Obligatory Villagers" left off. It didn't. It DID go in a new direction, which is fine, I'm all for new directions (and not just on "Glee"), but like "Normal As Blueberry Pie," "Home Sweet Mobile Home" didn't have a pulse, no toe-tapping (or foot-stomping) beats of "Waiter" or "Inner Peace." No pushing the audio envelope, like the left channel and right channel singing different bridges in "Galleon."

On this album: No rapping? And if not traditional "rapping," then "rapid-fire wordplay"? "Sari," "Columbia Is Bleeding" and "Identity Theft" all push the boundaries of spoken word set to music. I wished "Home Sweet Mobile Home" had continued that tradition, if for nothing more than to wake the listener up. A Nellie McKay album without rapping is like a Portishead album without turntables (see also: Portishead's "Third").

Also, no lyrics in the liner notes? For an artist who packs such a lyrical punch, I was surprised and disappointed there weren't Nellie's official transcriptions of what she was saying.

As for what I liked, I enjoyed "Bruise on the Sky." "Unknown Reggae" is another one I enjoyed; it lets Nellie take a new genre (for her) and put a vegan twist on it, taking me to a new place. But even on that song, the first verse talks about a boy she liked/loved, but she never brings him up again in any of the following verses, so I was unsure why she mentioned him in the first place. Much of the rest of the album has the same lack of clarity, like I'm not sure what I was supposed to take away from it.

Even some of the songs that were okay, like "Dispossessed"--she did the New Orleans/jazzy vibe SO much better on "Zombie." "No Equality," which seems right up her political, protesting alley, and has a funky 70s feel--I'm not even sure what KIND of inequality she's talking about? Gender? Race? Creed? Color? National Origin? Age? Sexual orientation? Income? Religion? It's fertile territory. I think it's about inequality within a relationship of hers, but it'd be nice for the listener to know what's going on.

This is an album where even after I listened to it several times (and even after going online to look for lyrics, listening closely, comparing the album versions with live versions on YouTube, piecing together my own transcriptions), not many of the melodies or lyrics stuck with me. I couldn't hum or sing much from memory.

Sidenote/rant: On both "Home Sweet Mobile Home" and "Normal As Blueberry Pie" (her two albums on Verve Forecast), 1) neither album include lyrics in their liner notes, which I can understand with the Doris Day covers if royalties involved with reprinting lyrics were an issue. 2) both "Blueberry" and "HSMH" have different bonus tracks on different versions. To get all three bonus tracks on "Blueberry," I'd have to buy both the whole Barnes & Noble physical version AND the whole iTunes version? I'd have to buy the album twice to get all the songs--really. Similarly, on "HSMH," to get the five bonus tracks, I'd have to buy both the $35 deluxe edition AND the whole iTunes album? As a loyal, law-abiding relic who still pays money for (often hard copies of) music, it's irritating the hurdles set up to (legally) be a completist.

In the end, "Home Sweet Mobile Home" may be like a lot of Alanis Morisette's post-"Jagged Little Pill" work--meant to be more studied than enjoyed. As Nellie says in "HSMH"'s opener "Bruise on the Sky": "I used to think about it / When I say 'think' I mean 'satirize'." Well, I miss satirical Nellie, and rapping Nellie, and theatrical Nellie, and ironic Nellie, and manic Nellie, and funny Nellie.

I'll still get Nellie's next album, hopefully not as just an obligatory listener.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun And Mellow, November 8, 2010

By 

Cydni Perkins (cedar city, utah United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Home Sweet Mobile Home (Audio CD)

One of the things I love about Nellie is her variety of musical styles, so I was excited to find out that she had added an island flavor on this album. I wasn't disappointed. She's got steel drums and ukuleles going on, but she reminds me exactly of herself. I'm also excited to hear some chamberpop a la Camera Obscura, which I also love. I don't hear any hard-edged rap or anger music here, although her lyrics still express her discontent on a few songs. Nellie sounds a lot more relaxed than she did on Get Away From Me and Pretty Little Head. She might be making the same journey that Alanis Morisette did, but I like both angry Nellie and mellow Nellie, so I'm very happy with her latest offering.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars whoa, Nellie!, October 22, 2010

By 

mrsverdantgreen - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Home Sweet Mobile Home (Audio CD)

I dug Nellie McKay's first album Get Away from Me, but I didn't care for her next one Pretty Little Head, so I passed on Obligatory Villagers and her Doris Day album. But I thought her contribution to David Byrne's Imelda Marcos concept album was decent, so I decided to give her another chance. This is a good album with island-ish sounds that I have not heard her do before. But the song with the chorus about eating hamburger was a bit extreme for me, so that's why I knock the rating down to 4 stars. So, I disagree with mary bee's review that Nellie McKay has lost her edge!