Imeem.com has three songs from the new Scarlett Johansson album Anywhere I lay my head streaming on its site. And if you create your own account you can put them up on your site. Which, of course, I have done for all you Scarlett fans.
UPDATE (April 16): Looks like the songs have been removed from Imeem...
UPDATE 2 (April 17): Somebody is streaming the tracks on Muxtape now.
25 comments:
Words like 'overproduced' and 'Enya' come to mind. Scarlett is vocally very capable, anyone who has heard her version of 'Summertime' can't disagree, and doesn't benefit the slightest from this kind of foggy layering. Maybe it sells or something.
Thanks for the link, Eyeball Kid! I have heard enough...
I'm with the rest of you. "I Wish I Was In New Orleans" kind of works, but the others seem way over produced. Did she or someone else not trust her voice and choose to hide it? I'm even more curious now to hear those earlier scrapped sessions.
Thanks for sharing that link.
Those were about the most painful, tacky, hideous Tom Waits cover songs I've ever heard in my life. Yeah, I was always wishing Tom and New Order would get together in a big ole blender....Christ.
Terrible....absolutely terrible!
I'm surprised at the universal revulsion. I'm a little disoriented, it's true, as i expected the smoky jazz treatment, but what I've heard has a Lynch/Badalamenti/Cruise quality to it. Enya?! Are you kidding. This isn't middle-brow, coffee-table, incense-burning, mystical gibberish. It's too odd for that. If there is a whopping great mistake here I think it's the choice of the Tom Waits songbook; in another context I think the style might've seemed like a better idea. Whatever, I need to here 'No One Knows I'm Gone' and 'Who are You?' to make my mind up. Link Raygun says these are the worst Waits coveres he's heard. My god, how many have you heard?! There's some truly wretched, ruinous stuff out there.
WOW! WOW! WOW! The first two songs sound like they were played by a very cheap wedding band. One of the worst covers I have ever heard ( and I dont mean only Tom Waits covers). How could you go so wrong with such beautiful melodies? They should keep it simple. I feel sorry for the poor girl.
Horrible, awful and grating on my ears is how I will choose to describe this. I was tentatively optimistic about this project, but man oh man, was I ever let down.
I agree that it's way overproduced. Scarlett sounds like she's reading the lyrics off a sheet of paper, standing in a bathroom surrounded by synth-players.
Man, I am disappointed. I kind of like the synth-80s sound in general, but man does it not work here!
People always say my favorite Bob Dylan album "Infidels" (yeah, shut up) is over-produced and I never understood what that meant. I like the 80s sound, I like the reggae and rock mix, I like the lyrics. I just couldn't understand what they meant by over-produced.
Now I do.
(Though still not applied to that particular album.)
And I really had a fair amount of hope that this would be good. She ought to re-do the whole thing, pardon the pun, "all stripped down." (And I don't mean nekkid either.)
soul less - makes you appreciate the man even more
At the risk of being barred, I quite like them. I wish I was in New Orleans is easily the best track here but the layered 80's style production does work for me. I can hear the Jesus and Mary Chain in all this, as well as the Cocteau Twins. I really was expecting the hollywood classy chanteuse treatment (orchestras/sultry vocals etc etc). This I was not. It's disingenous nature has kind of charmed me after a couple of listens. As my wife rightly says though, she's a little young for the material...
have they removed them or something already? it wont play for me and i cant find the tracks on the host site either...
It was to bad to be true!
Very brief snippets of all the tracks on the album can be heard here:
http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/poprock/
detail/-/hnum/1974146
Wow, loved these...l personally thought Anywhere I lay my hat was the best. Different to Tom's, but interesting in a Cocteau Twins kinda way. And who needs more Madeline Peyroux, Norah Jones, Diana Krall style versions anyway???
thanks dr pod for the alt link!
...i have to admit...i don't HATE it...an I agree with simon that i'm sick of smoky female jazz singers covering his stuff..BUT...electronic and ethereal doesn't seem to suit my dear Mr. Waits either...he's too raw, which is why we love him I think.
So yes...verdict (from 10 second snippets of all the songs) is...dont hate...but won't be shelling out 20 bucks anytime soon.
don't let the surge of positive-ish commentary in the last few posts delude your instinct --that was a perfect example of how not to make music, especially when covering Mr. Waits. "If you don't belive me ask yourself" - T.Waits(Lost in the harbour)
@ blue valentine:
I thought it was
"And if you don't believe me, ask the elves"
in Lost in the Harbour ???
It could be the elves, I've never had a really keen ear for lyrics anyway. Maybe I just like the solemn confidence thats is evident in "If you don't believe me ask yourselves" Either way, the elves . . yourselves . . we mostly agree, the only redeeming feature of the songs I heard is that they only lasts a few minutes.
Too much Bowie influence.
Yeah, waaaaay overproduced and soulless. It sounds like she's trying to use the latest audio technology to cover up the fact she can't really sing. Good actress, mediocre singer. I'll give her props for using her own arrangements---even if they are emasculated versions of Siouxie and the Banshees' style.
Besides, IMHO, only Tom can sing Tom's songs.
"Besides, IMHO, only Tom can sing Tom´s songs." Desperate nonsense, Chris!
And why is that, Shiny? Tell me why my humble opinion is nonsense.
Am I right that Eyeball Kid previously posted that Tom Waits blessed this project? PLEASE say it ain't so.
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