Scarlett Johansson Issue #36

Anywhere I Lay My Head (Atco)

By Kimberly Chun
Published: August 1st, 2008 | 10:15am

Frankly, Scarlett, do we give a damn?

Some actors-turned-pop stars like Lindsay Lohan confide that they had little to do with their well-autotuned product. Others, such as Zooey Deschanel of the M. Ward–assisted She and Him, possess the songwriting and live experience as well as the crucial vox.

Both an indie movie sweetheart thanks to Ghost World and Lost in Translation and a commercial blonde experienced at hawking hair color and handbags, Scarlett Johansson’s musicianship falls somewhere between Lohan and Deschanel’s. She has the pitch, vocal and otherwise, and popularity to push this Tom Waits cover project — sans her own songs, save “Song for Jo,” co-written by producer David Sitek of TV on the Radio — and the smarts to get support from such vets as duet partner David Bowie, and musicians like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Nick Zinner and the Celebration’s Sean Antanaitis.

The dreamy, narcotic-sounding result, Anywhere I Lay My Head, is simultaneously interest-piquing and energy-sapping. Johansson’s deep monotone makes of Waits’ “Anywhere I Lay My Head” and “I Don’t Want to Grow Up” resemble a freeze-dried Nico — a cool if ill-fitting choice. It quickly becomes eclipsed by the sonically intriguing and sludgily paced arrangements and subterranean production. Anywhere kicks off with the organ-and-brass–ornamented New Orleans jazzy overture of “Fawn” — tellingly, without Johansson — before introducing the star amid the Tibetan bowls, sax, and reverb guitar of “Town With No Cheer.” The album continues to raise the musical gambit with the banjo and pump organ-embellished ballad “Falling Down,” drum machine-driven synth-popper “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up,” and the jingle bell–dappled boozy blues “Green Grass.”

It all adds up to an experimentally minded rocknroll mis-en-scene that all but overwhelms Johansson, who, if one ignores her marquee prominence on this recording, is treated as just another instrument in the mix. Now, if only Sitek was able to find a real vocalist.