Nellie McKay - 'Obligatory Villagers'

In comedy, sarcasm can be a double-edged sword. The point is to say the opposite of what you mean, but somehow have the audience get the point and laugh. Unsurprisingly, this approach has a tendency to backfire.

The most infamous example is probably A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift, a satirical pamphlet that suggested the Irish improve their economic status by selling their children as food. A lot of people didn’t get that one. Another example is Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a social parody of racial tensions in the American South. Unfortunately, in order to pull this off, Twain had to drop the very scary “n-bomb” a whopping 212 times, so a few schools and libraries got a wee bit squeamish about the whole thing.

The trouble with sarcasm also falls upon Obligatory Villagers, the third album from British-born singer/songwriter/political activist/comedienne/overachiever Nellie McKay. While it has the same jazz/classic pop sound and scathingly cute social critiques of previous releases Get Away From Me and Pretty Little Head, Obligatory Villagers suffers from an overabundance of smug delivery and not-that-funny sarcastic lyrics. Or maybe I’m just too serious.

Either way, it doesn’t help that the album opens with “Mother of Pearl,” the worst song of the record. A campy send-up of sexism via mocking feminism, “Mother of Pearl” isn’t funny so much as bland and stupid, making for a really weird, lame conversation between the artist and the listener.

“Feminists don’t have a sense of humor,” McKay sings to me. I’m apprehensive about that line, but hey, you might be going with a “P.C. people can sometimes be fascists” route or something.

“They have a tumor in their funny bone.” OK, yeah, sometimes feminists like me can be droll and lifeless, but I like to think I enjoy a good poop joke almost as much as equal rights in the work place. Almost.

“They say/‘Child molestation isn’t funny/Rape and degradation’s just a crime.’” Whoa nelly, Nellie! Some stuff just does not scream “comedic gold.” Granted, I’m not having a dialogue with you so much as listening to your album on my laptop and typing my thoughts out, but I like to think your response would come from the song’s closing lines of “They’re far too sensitive to ever be a ham/That’s why feminists just need to find a man.” To which I gotta come back with, we may not be funny, but neither are you. And what’s with the gaggle of guys making snide remarks in the background? The joke is clear and dumb enough without them to highlight and underline what you’ve already spelled out.

The rest of the songs on Obligatory Villagers continue the vanilla orchestral pop feel but tone down the lyrical content, making them both more and less offensive. I’d rather have a song piss me off than make me feel nothing. Sure, the show tune demeanor of tracks like “Oversure” and “Identity Theft” carry their own socio-political commentary, but honestly, it’s been done better.

Obligatory Villagers has two saving graces, however. First, it’s mercifully short at 31 minutes long. Second, perhaps I’m no better than the critics who condemned A Modest Proposal and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Maybe I’m too focused on the content and not enough on the themes. Maybe it’s actually a brilliant send-up of gender/sexual/racial issues, a musical concept record that bastardizes Broadway the same way punk rock revolutionized rock ‘n’ roll. Maybe it’s a bold, provocative collection in the vein of the soundtracks to Avenue Q or Team America: World Police.

Or maybe Obligatory Villagers really, really sucks.