The question everyone wants to know is, can Scarlett Johansson sing? Can she make a decent album? Well, when you’re surrounded by enough talent, enough reverb, spacey-effects and and funereal instrumentation anyone can sound like Julee Cruise backed by the Cocteau Twins on ambien.
Not that Scarjo, can’t sing, she can, she’s fine, but her singing voice sounds an awful like her speaking voice which isn’t always the sign of the world’s greatest singer. We prefer her higher-ranged soft vocals on “I Wish I Was In New Orleans,” which sounds like a lullaby out of a David Lynch movie or a Guy Maddin winterstorm.
Most of the Anywhere I Lay My Head though is sung in her manly, lower register and frankly, isn’t as exiting as we hoped consider the bevy of talent she was working with – David Bowie, the Celebration, members of the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs and Dave Sitek of TV on The Radio who has a knack for producing every record he ever works on to sound exactly like a TVOTR record.
Early reports have some critics pleasanly surprised with the record, while we’re feeling slightly overwhelmed. Maybe we just need to give a few more spins, or not, we’ll see. Oh well, check out a few tracks below. The album comes out via Rhino on May 20. Update: Looks like the man has yanked them off Imeem, thanks for playing and hope you enjoyed the short preview. Update: Looks like a track has leaked.
We’re linking to that one.