#16 - On the album "Anywhere I Lay My Head" by Scarlett Johansson

Let me first note that I got this album for free. There.
Oh Scarjo. Why did you do this? That was my first reaction when I read that the buxom indie-nerd's-then-everyone's-then-some-people's wet dream announced that she would record an album chock full of songs by one of my favorite artists of all time: Tom Waits. The offenses went on: she managed to fanagle the skills of Dave Sitek from TV on the Radio. David Bowie was slated to guest sing on the album. Nick Zimmer from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs was to play guitar on it. My mind split on whether or not the album would be awful or at least cool sound and awful. In the end I am still not sure how I feel about all of this. Being an album I got for free, my first thought was "I kinda wish it had a hotter cover/liner notes art. She looks vaguely like Gwen Stefani (someone I do not like, to put mildly)" You know, cuz really... let's get real here. I wasn't even sure if I was going to actually listen to the album but I figured.. what the hell.
The production is beautiful. For one song. Then pretty sweet the next. Then it just gets more and more boring as it goes on. On some songs, the ethereal washes of guitar and near industrial noise.. basically TV On the Radio going all Slowdive (though not My Bloody Valentine because they are a different... less boring kind of shoegazer music). Then Scarjo begins to sing.
One thing I noticed that this album reinforces is the beauty of Tom Wait's songs. The strength of melody you have there. True, Waits does not a beautiful voice, but in a way it's unique enough to make you think it's all about the delivery and the wacked out lyrics when it comes to his songs.
Scarlett Johansson cannot sing. She is not awful though. And she sounds like she is honestly trying. Not hamming it up really, but really getting into the songs, and through this it all achieves a weird sort of beauty. I imagine if the songs were presented in a movie as sung by some everyday girl (who is really hot) as portrayed by Scarjo, they would be easier to stomach than on an album which is marketed as an album of songs interpreted by someone worthy of interpreting the material. It is not. But it's a nice little album of songs sung badly but heartfelt..ly by someone who had the money and connections to put it together. There's nothing wrong with that. In the end, oddly, the bad vocals make the album better than the nearly pedestrian (while being totally nonmainstream somehow) production, which sometimes hold it back. They attempt to hide the flaws in the delivery more than call attention to them, and I think that would have helped in selling the album as a real work, and less a vanity project (which it doesn't really feel like anyways.)
Still, it's not actually GOOD. Just better than bad. Which, given expectations, throws it somewhere in the realm of AMAZING... or not. So I probably won't put it in my mp3 library, and no hot cover? I'm selling this baby.
Grade: C+