"Anywhere I Lay My Head"Released: May 16, 2008
Label: Rhino
After seeing the movie Match Point, my friend asked, "Scarlett, why did you have to ruin what could have been Woody Allen's return to form?" Whatever. Even though the movie was awful, Scarlett did nothing either to benefit or to hurt it. I can overlook shit like Match Point because she won my heart in Lost in Translation and because she's really good-looking. Like, really, really good-looking. Like, I have a giant porn-star-cock boner for Scarlett Johansson. So, for that reason, I muscled through "Anywhere I Lay My Head", an album comprised of Tom Waits covers and one original song, in its entirety. And it made my metaphorical penis shrivel as I were watching old people bang on the beach while swimming through the sludge of Long Island Sound in January. It was so NOT good that I didn't even enabled "scrobbling" for my Last.fm profile during my second listen to write this review, and I "scrobble" shit like Brand New. That says something. I can't even like this ironically.
I'm not a big Tom Waits fan, so I can't be like, "Scarlett, why did you have to do to Tom Waits what Alien Ant Farm did to Michael Jackson?" or some shit like that. That's a really terrible analogy, but it was the only that came to mind, and I was kind of joking...
Let's keep Tom Waits out of it for now. Scarlett, your voice is, like, so deep, and you kind of sound like you're shout-singing from a good thirty feet from the microphone. And it sounds like you might have had some teeth extracted shortly before recording so your mouth is still numb from the Novocain, and while you're singing, you're also dribbling some bloody saliva all over yourself. In the title track, you sound like you're trying to be black. You're, like, half-ass gospel choir singing. If being racist is the price I have to pay for an accurate metaphor, then so be it.
And some one must have been like, "Let's have some weird drone-y shit in the background of a lot of songs to sort of cover up the mediocre backing track." The arrangements have a Hemingway-like simplicity, and I mean that in a bad way.
Scarlett, you sound like a destitute man's Victoria Legrand, the lead singer of Beach House. And if I haven't made enough analogies and metaphors in this review, let me make one more: If Matt Berninger, the lead singer of The National, has a voice like fine bourbon, say maker's Mark, yours is like watered down Crystal Palace vodka. Only $12.99 for a handle.
Scarlett, I wanted to like you as a singer so much. I tried. Please know I tried. However, you should fear not, pretty one, because I will still put your pictures up on my dorm room walls. Seriously.
Rating: F for flaccid
