KEY POINTS:
SCARLETT JOHANSSON
Anywhere I Lay My Head
(Atco)
Rating: * *
Verdict: Scarlett the starlet sings Tom Waits. Usual advice about day job applies.
Well it's certainly a bold idea - a covers album of songs by a guy with such a voice by someone famous who doesn't really appear
to have one.
It's not that Scarlett Johansson can't sing. When it comes to the 10 Tom Waits songs (and one original), she can sure hold a note with her slightly androgynous throaty voice. And then, she holds another one just like it.
It's just that mostly she's so buried in its esoteric production - think the 80s echo chamber of the Cocteau Twins, or the stuck-down-a-well approach of Mazzy Star - that her vocal presence becomes a moot point.
Heck, on the opening track Fawn you can barely hear her at all ... oh it's an instrumental, which, of course, is the best way to start an album by someone who's a movie star. They need some theme music before the performance begins.
It is mildly intriguing how it sounds, care of TV on the Radio member turned very hip producer David Sitek and Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist Nick Zinner.
Songs which once clanked with gruff life in their original form, here swirl about the place, all fairground organs, shimmering textures, and doomy electronic rhythms. Or they do things that are plain awful like the perky 80s synthesizer take on I Don't Want to Grow Up.
When Johansson's unexpressive delivery makes a rare foray to the forefront, it can still be effective. See the wide-screen Beach Boys-gone-dreampop rendition of Fannin' Street, or the ghostly music box-accompanied I Wish I Was In New Orleans.
Occasionally the distinctive voice of a backing singer named David Bowie turns up, often upstaging the star of the piece on the likes of Falling Down.
He and Sitek tend to render Johansson a supporting role on her own album. And if there was a point to the Waits song selection, it's not abundantly clear - they're neither arranged or performed with much sympathy to the original material, with Waits' tunes vague echoes of their former selves and his words drained of their story-telling power.
It has its pretty moments, yes, the cover photo included. But it's no tribute album.
Of course, Tom Waits does moonlight as an actor. So guess he had it coming, huh?