Nellie McKay, a young singer-songwriter whose 2004 album, "Get Away From Me," was one of the most acclaimed pop debuts in recent years, says she has been dropped by Columbia Records just as her follow-up was scheduled to reach stores. While McKay had been negotiating for some time with the label over the length and final song selection of "Pretty Little Head" -- which was to have been released Tuesday -- she says the decision not to put out the album was a result of a recent executive shake-up at Columbia, and "had more to do with my personality" than with the album itself.

The London-born, Harlem-based McKay (pronounced Mac-EYE) had been fighting with the label over her insistence on a 23-song, 65-minute version of the album; Columbia was pressing for a 16-song, 48-minute version. (The two-CD "Get Away From Me" has been called the first double-disc set ever released by a debut artist.) At recent shows, McKay had given out the personal e-mail address of the Columbia chairman, Will Botwin, from the stage, encouraging fans to lobby him for the release of the longer album. "I thought we had resolved things favorably," McKay said. "We were just finalizing the artwork."

But last month the Sony Label Group, which owns Columbia, underwent a corporate restructuring; Botwin left the company and was replaced by the former Epic Records chairman Steve Barnett. After that, McKay said, her lawyer received a phone call informing them that Columbia would not be releasing "Pretty Little Head" in any form. (Representatives from Columbia said that no one could be reached for comment because of the holidays.)

"Whoever called to tell us said that she hadn't actually heard the album," McKay said in a telephone interview on Jan. 1, "and said that 'this isn't about the music' -- which I thought was really funny. The conventional wisdom is that the music industry is money-driven, but this actually had nothing to do with money, it was an artistic disagreement." McKay, in fact, fronted the money for the album's recording sessions as a way to keep her record company at arm's length.

"Pretty Little Head," which features duets with Cyndi Lauper and K.D. Lang and songs addressing gay marriage and animal rights, had already been provided to the press, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

Columbia's sister label, Epic, went through a similar situation with another young female artist last year, when Fiona Apple's "Extraordinary Machine" was leaked on the Internet after a lengthy delay amid widespread rumors that the label didn't think the album was sufficiently commercial. When "Extraordinary Machine" was released in September, it became one of the year's most highly praised albums.

As for "Pretty Little Head," for now its future is in limbo. McKay is trying to buy back the rights to the 23 songs and determine what to do with them. "There's lots of legal stuff," she said. "We're just trying to get it out as soon as we can."

She said that her feelings about the split with Columbia were decidedly mixed. "I think for both sides, it's liberating," she said. "You have no idea how much of a pain I can be."