Charlotte Sometimes, Or Megan McCauley All The Time?

by Chuck Eddy

So the latest “foxy-librarian coffeehouse folk” hopeful, as Rob Harvilla dubbed the recent spate of Ingrid/Feist/Yael/Colbie/Sara snooze in the Village Voice recently, would seem to be one Charlotte Sometimes—a sing-songy, frequently vibrato-dependent, Jersey-born lounge-shemo chick who shares her name with a 1969 children’s book, a 1981 Cure dirge, and a 2002 indie film, all of which fans enjoy describing as “haunting fantasies.” She’s Vans-Warped-Touring this summer, and her single “How I Could Just Kill A Man” comes complete with a look-ma-I’m-quoting-Cypress-Hill chorus. “Sounds like Twisted Sister Meets Mister Mister,” her MySpace page claims; sadly, a lie. Waves & The Both of Us, assisted by a low list price, is bubbling under some or other chart as we speak. If a licensing deal didn’t happen yet, it should soon. Good for Charlotte (no pop-punk pun intended); I just wish it was happening to Megan McCauley instead.

Megan’s this zany young woman from Cleveland whose debut album Better Than Blood came out on Wind-Up late last year, and almost nobody noticed. I’m stumped how everybody missed the damn thing: All over her album cover, she dresses with theatrical glamboyance in fishnets and top hats and low-cut tops and bright red hair. Her greatest and most popular song, the Max-Martin-co-written “Tap That,” hilariously concerns treating some poor guy like a piece of meat, and has been aptly described by my friend Frank Kogan as the world’s only cross between Salt-N-Pepa and Evanescence.

“I’ll Pay You To Shoot Him,” which closes the album, seems to concern Megan hiring somebody to gun down her dad. But though the words come off like a cross between Aerosmith’s "Janie's Got a Gun" and AC/DC’s "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap," the riff is at least as unmistakable a Nirvana rip as any that, say, Aly & AJ or Brie Larson have managed. And most of Megan's other decent tunes have Cobain in their guitar genes as well – I’m especially fond of album opener "Migraine," where her high squeal also recalls that whatever-he-is in Placebo.

While none of the rest of her record matches the humor of “Tap That,” her emotion generally compensates for any overserious bent. Mainly she seems to be going for the Evanescence/Flyleaf mall-goth angst crowd, or maybe what's left of the Alanis (in "I Realize")/Pink (in "See Through") singer-songstress angst crowd. The set opens solid, and only gets bleh now and then -- I cringe when she makes her Norah Jones nostalgic-grownup-music move in "Porcelain Doll.” Then again, grownup nostalgia is what most of those foxy librarians are selling these days; so the attempt is at least fiscally responsible. But maybe Megan is just too alive for the coffeehouse?