I had never heard of Kate Nash until two weeks ago when she simultaneously was a Gothamist pick of the week, an iTunes highlight, and reviewed in New York magazine and the Seattle Stranger. A week after Kate's American release Made of Bricks, Gothamist writer Jen Carlson is already calling Laura Marling the new Kate Nash. Apparently the half-life of a British singer songwriter is about a month these days.
[md: My Kate Nash research also helped lead to me to the fine people at my new favorite music blog This Recording . I feel like This Recording would be Probably Awkward's hate f*ck/booty call if they were both people.]
[ht adds: MD knows how I feel about those TR kids. I'm not going to be unladylike in public.]
Basically:
Kate Nash = Lily Allen + Regina Spektor =
Lily Allen + Regina Spektor = (Amy Winehouse - drug abuse) + (Tori Amos - insanity + Russia/New York)=
Kate Nash = Amy Winehouse (Billy Holiday - soul +extra drug abuse) - drug abuse + Tori Amos (Kate Bush + the adulation of high school homos) - insanity + Brighton Beach.
or
Quirky music that might be worth listening to. I'm still on the fence, but I like this song (in which she sounds like Bjork) quite a bit. (Kate Nash -- We Get On)
[HT adds: Speaking of quirk -- Ms. Nash has already shown up on the NY TImes 'A Night Out With' series, which has previously waxed cute with the likes of The Flight of the Conchords folks *and* Becky Stark. Just giving you all some added context/fodder/etc.]
um ... come on, people! there is plainly some kind of whistling gulf stream of auditory alchemy going on here - it's as though we were to to declare John Cougar Mellencamp the heir to Ray Davies or Paris Hilton the next Katherine Whalen. I mean, the stolid and average R*ch*rd H*wl*y is one thing, but -- **Kate Nash**? there are those around here who think her 'emergence' just about the most irritating, bogus and embarrassing event in UK pop in that all-round car crash we call 2007. ... don't do it, America! don't squander the world's good will at this crucial juncture in our shared global story!
Posted by: jb | January 21, 2008 at 06:40 AM
hey! some of us appreciate john cougar mellencamp! don't you go putting him and paris hilton in the same sentence!
Posted by: ht | January 21, 2008 at 11:23 AM
OK - I admit I was struggling to think of any analog(ues) to match Nash's awfulness: anyone would. Cougar is undoubtedly more gifted and important than this mockney stage-school stain upon a nation's pop repute, though considering you only like one Bruce Springsteen LP, it's a little perverse to expend your gallantry on that amiably tawny eighties rustbelt relic.
Posted by: jb | January 21, 2008 at 11:50 AM
hey! i only like one springsteen album *in full*. there are any number of his singles (and/or singular tracks) that i quite like, but none of the other albums *qua album*, are as good as 'nebraska'.
does this mean that you're also not so keen on ms. lily allen? she's so perky and cute!
Posted by: ht | January 21, 2008 at 12:06 PM
I agree about the Boss claim, probably, though - I don't know: Born To Run is pretty epic in large stretches, and Tunnel of Love is remarkably consistent and strong for anyone who doesn't mind the occasional 1987 keyboard sound. But this probably doesn't feel like a very Probably Awkward conversation.
ms Allen is up with Winehouse and Doherty (and "Princes" William and Harry, actually) as main fodder for the free evening papers in London. If you board a train at a major terminal at 23:00 (or in truth, probably any time after noon) you will find reams of waste paper strewn around the aisles, almost like the scene in ch 7 of Ulysses. And across the top of all the front pages are a beehived Winehouse stumbling out of a club with a drink still in hand, Allen in a bright party dress cheerily smoking a fag, Doherty falling off stage or going to court in his pork-pie hat, or maybe the princes getting out of a late-night taxi with their offensively hedonistic entourage. After a few nights of this, let alone a few months or years, one gets to feel that these characters have entertained one long enough.
Posted by: jb | January 21, 2008 at 12:24 PM
For what it's worth, upon further perusal of her MySpace page and her "A Night Out With," I think it's right to say she's an avatar of this "new innocence" "sainted quirk" "Lavender Diamond" movement. Having said that, some of her songs are rather enjoyable although the prospect of spending even five minutes with her makes me break out in hives.
I'm not saying she shares the musical DNA of Billy Holiday -- I'm just tracking the music presses breathless comparisons pack to their progenitors.
I like Springsteen but it's because I'm a red-blooded American, unlike the both of you.
Posted by: md | January 21, 2008 at 12:58 PM