MUSIC REVIEW: Scarlett Johansson

"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

MUSIC REVIEW: Bright Eyes

"FEVERS AND MIRRORS"

Released: May 30, 2000

Label: Saddle Creek

Carolyn: We have to do a Bright Eyes review. Let's have a candid conversation, the three of us, right now.

Laura: Yeah, I'm really liking the cheese I'm hearing. I kind of like this song. Except for when it gets to the chorus. That's when he goes for the fucking baked brie with caramelized onions and pears and shit.

C: Ok. What album do we wanna review?

Alicia: It's gotta be something we all know very well. Brainstorm for 30 seconds.

C: I'm not familiar...

L: You dork.

A: Can we have parenthetical stage directions, like, "all three assume pensive expressions"?

C: Ok.

[Alicia points out a girl in the Retreat who is talking to herself. Carolyn and Laura stare.]

A: I might be getting fro yo in, like, two seconds.

L: Go get your fro yo, and then we'll do it.

[Alicia leaves and eventually comes back.]

A: I used to listen to "Haligh, Haligh, A Lie, Haligh" over and over again in high school in study hall, thinking about how much my life sucked and how I hated everything, and I would wonder why, if I was better than everyone else, I had no friends.

L: This is pretty fucking postmodern album art...It sounds like he's fucking sitting on the toilet looking at his fingernails and crying.

A: I wonder if he ever listens to the album on playback and asks the producer to put in more angst.

L: No. He probably listens to the playback and beats off.

C: This is totally alienating the readers. Also, I'm having trouble saying anything witty while I'm typing.

A: You can edit yourself in later.

L: On the subj of alienating the reader, when I was writing my travel story about Steak n Shake, I probably alienated the state of Minnesota.

[Conor Oberst, singing: "And I hang like a star, fucking glow in the dark, for all the starving eyes to see"]

C: By the way, back in high school, my friend had these lyrics in her AIM profile.

L: Omg. Put that in.

A: Didn't everyone? I mean, he has pretty good one-liners.

L: Come on. You guys are over it now, right? Right?

[Silence.]

A: Over what?

L: Cutting yourselves.

A: You mean my undying love for Conor Oberst and my strong conviction that despite all odds we will one day marry?

L: I think I passed the Bright Eyes threshold. I'm too old now.

C: Yeah, it's like Perks of Being a Wallflower.

L: ...Even though I'm at the embracing cheese level, I can't even...

MUSIC REVIEW: Beach House

"DEVOTION"

Released: February 26, 2008

Label: Carpark Records

Carolyn: Let's have a candid discussion right now about Beach House's "Devotion."

Laura: I haven't listened to it that much, but I don't really like it. I know that's probably the wrong answer according to Pitchfork. What do you think, Carolyn?

C: Hold on a second.

L: How candid can it be if you're typing it as we're speaking? Write that down. Have me say "write that down"!

C: IT'S SO META.

L: Back to the real topic. What do you actually think?

C: I think... OK. Well. I like the band...

L: They're from Vassar, you know.

C: Yeah, I know.

Sanger: They went to Vassar?

L: Yeah. She was a drama student.

S: Ew.

C: Ok. I like the band, but I didn't like the album.

L: Why?

C: Every song sounded the same.

L: I concur.

C: This review will probably alienate some of our readers.

L: I kind of liked that about the last album. I listened to it a lot on the Metro North. It was nice to listen to it and look at the river. That one song was so good.

C: Alright, let's wrap up this conversaysh.

L: That's a good enough ending for me.

C: ...By the way, Zach loved it.

L: For realz? He would.

MUSIC REVIEW: The Fray

"HOW TO SAVE A LIFE"

Released: September 13, 2005

Label: Sony

Carolyn: Which song to do you like better, "Cable Car" or "How to Save a Life"?

Byron: They're essentially the same song.

C: Yeah, I know.

B: I guess I like "How to Save a Life" better. It's their best song. They'll never write a better song, which is sad because it sucks.

Carolyn: How is my review so far?

Laura: Good, but you could hate on The Fray in more detail.

C: What do you think about The Fray?

L: It makes me want to, like, eat a Warm Delight and look at myself in the mirror and cry. That's probably what their target demographic does. I dunno. Maybe that's too mean. maybe I'm just afraid of my feelings.

Jessie: What do you think of The Fray?

Carolyn: What can I say, really? They are to music what Dan Brown is to literature. That's not a very creative or particularly funny analogy. I dunno. They're just a drop in the bucket of bad music these days.

J: Yeah. Just another jetski on top of an endangered manatee.