Nellie McKay never quite fits into any one box, and that’s exactly the point. With its first-time release on vinyl, her Hey Guys, Watch This is a collection of subtly country-tinged originals that feel like they’ve been marinating in moonshine and mountain air. Recorded in Charleston, West Virginia, the album had McKay teaming up with the Carpenter Ants - Michael Lipton, Ted Harrison, Jupie Little, and Mark Bates - for a rootsy romp through Appalachian landscapes and smoky saloon moods. It’s a record that twinkles under starlight and rattles like a midnight train rolling through the hills.

The re-release arrives with fresh polish, remastered by Grammy-winning engineer Michael Graves, and on vinyl for the first time with updated artwork to match. But the heart of Hey Guys, Watch This remains the same: weird, wonderful, and a little bit wild. It’s music for the outsider, the drifter, the ones sipping from red Solo cups in creaky porch chairs.

McKay’s been zig-zagging across genres since her landmark 2004 debut Get Away From Me, flipping between cabaret, jazz, pop, and protest songs with irreverent ease. She’s paid tribute to Doris Day (Normal As Blueberry Pie), sung saloon songs on Sister Orchid, and called on jazz legends like Bob Dorough and Phil Woods for Obligatory Villagers. Each record has felt like a different kind of party, and sometimes a wake. Her voice - by turns honeyed, biting, and theatrical - has landed her spots on Late Show with David Letterman and The View, and her songs have turned up on Mad Men, Weeds, and Boardwalk Empire. But McKay’s stage presence stretches beyond the mic. She’s won a Theatre World Award for her role in The Threepenny Opera, co-starred in the Off-Broadway hit Old Hats, and written and starred in a string of riveting musical biographies, from Barbara Graham’s final days on death row to the gender-bending life of Billy Tipton.

With Hey Guys, Watch This, McKay pens a crooked love letter to Americana, filtered through her singular vision. Playful, poignant, and politically barbed, it's a reminder that Nellie McKay might be country adjacent, but she's always marching to her own drum. So, pour one out for the weirdos - Nellie’s here, and the night is young.