Album Details

• Artist: Elle King
• EP:
The Elle King Ep
• Label: RCA Records
• Year of Release: 2012
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: carlita on 2012-07-16

Media

Receiving an e-mail last week with a link to The Elle King EP, the album cover immediately caught my attention. With photos as if taken in a photo booth at a high school carnival, I had to find out more about her. Watching a funny interview she did amongst stuffed animals on YouTube, Elle projected an adorable, Brooklyn-artsy, secretly dorky girl who if crossed might possibly "cut a b-tch". My type of girl.

Playing piano, guitar and banjo on the four tracks, the spunky EP begins with a catchy 50's Rockabilly ditty recently featured on "Mob Wives Chicago" called "Playing For Keeps".  Her
voice is a retro combo of Duffy, Adele and Norah Jones, having a howling, powerful, gravely quality of years gone by. "Good To Be A Man" features Elle on the banjo and has humorous lyrics recalling Sheryl Crow's matter-of-fact "All I Wanna Do" like "to be a man would be serene, drinking beer til I get mean" and "my only worry would be my receding hairline". In the tradition of heartbroken sirens before her, she has "No One Can Save You", describing a hopeless situation, trying to break the ties from someone completely wrong for you but you're inevitably drawn back to begin a vicious cycle all over again.

Ending the EP with a bluesy live cover of hip-hop artist Khia's "My Neck, My Back" which describes in detail sexually explicit items, to put it mildly. Showing more sass and humor by throwing that in, I thought I would be completely offended but I couldn't stop laughing along with the folks in the audience you hear in the background. If these four songs served as a teaser for what's to come, this angelic-looking bad girl is definitely "playing for keeps".

User Reviews and Comments

on 2012-07-16 hstisgod Said:

exciting review, might have to check out my neck my back
Not Rated