Serena Ryder doesn’t mind confessing that she was something of an oddball during her early teens. For a good idea of what she listened to during those years, you need only consult the 23-year-old singer’s major-label debut, If Your Memory Serves You Well . The album art—right down to the ’70s-style graphic announcing that the recording is in “Stereo—The Modern Sound”—is a throwback to a time when vinyl was king, Simon and Garfunkel were almost hip, and Carly Simon was still kind of sexy. As for the tracks, 12 of the 15 are covers, with Ryder delving into the songbooks of Leonard Cohen, the Band, Paul Anka, and even Billie Holiday. That’s led more than one critic to suggest that the Ontario-based singer is a little out of step with others her age, something she doesn’t deny.

“In public school, for sure I felt like a black sheep,” Ryder says, on the line from her home base of Toronto. “Everyone was listening to New Kids on the Block, and I was listening to Roger Miller. But then I was lucky in that I got into a fantastic arts school in Peterborough. There were a lot of eclectic souls there who really liked all kinds of art.”

One listen to If Your Memory Serves You Well and it’s obvious why Ryder didn’t fit in. Offering more than a poor man’s Jewel with an acoustic guitar, the disc finds the smoky-voiced singer aiming for something well beyond a Wednesday-night slot at the Café Deux Soleils of the world. Shot through with delicate mandolin, Ryder’s rendition of “Sisters of Mercy” will make you wonder what you ever saw in Leonard Cohen. “Good Morning Starshine” sounds like an artifact from the Age of Aquarius, “Some of These Days” does Depression-era blues with a panache that would impress Lady Day herself, and “Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream” is a Wilco-style art-rocker that’s powerful enough to raise the questions of what the hell the western world is doing in the Middle East.

“I never consciously think about music as a style unless it’s 100-percent obvious—like old country stuff like Hank Williams,” Ryder says. “People will sometimes say to me, ”˜You haven’t really found your one style yet,’ but I don’t ever really see that happening because I like all kinds of music.”

The singer’s three MOR–oriented originals on If Your Memory Serves You Well suggest that Ryder’s days of performing songs written before she was born will soon be coming to an end. For now, though, she’s happy being a modern-pop oddity: a songwriter who’ll happily admit that she’s more than a little indebted to the artists she grew up listening to.

“I first started playing shows when I was seven, eight, nine, and 10—before I was writing,” Ryder says. “The songs on this album are the kind of songs that inspired me to do my own writing. A lot of people spend so much of their time trying to be absolutely original, like ”˜My voice is my voice, and I can’t be compared to anybody else.’ Everybody has their own influences, and I’ve embraced mine. What you hear on my record is where I’ve come from.”

Serena Ryder plays the Media Club on Sunday (February 4).