Gee Whiz: The Get Away From Me Demos - Black LPx2
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Release Date
02/28/2025
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Catalog Number: A 751149
Color: Black
Format: LP
UPC: 810075114980
18 previously unissued demos on 2-LPs mirroring Nellie's critically acclaimed, Geoff Emerick-produced and -engineered debut album. Packaging contains new liner notes from Nellie McKay "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."
Nellie McKay--and her debut album--were not perfect. They were better than that. They were real. And in a year that saw seminal punk from Green Day (American Idiot) and seminal hip hop from Kanye (College Dropout, which came out the same day as Get Away From Me) that was enough to make it the best album of the year." That said, the story really began before the album was recorded. 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, now on CD, and as a double-LP. As a bonus, the CD contain three very early, previously unissued tracks. Mastered by multiple Grammy-winner Michael Graves, these revelatory demos show how complete the album was in its initial stages and brings new insight on the creative process from one of music's most creative artists.