Scarlett Johansson

Anywhere I Lay My Head
(Atco)

Oh, Scarlett. Anyone covering a bunch of Tom Waits songs is asking to be mocked — wait, I haven't mocked yet — but darlin’, you’re not even a singer! And I don’t even mean that it’s not your day job... I mean that if you weren’t famous and generally respected already, you wouldn’t be asked to sing unless it was part of a “Happy Birthday” sing-a-long! (OK, now I’m mocking).



The good news is, the band is beyond fine. TV on the Radio multi-tasker Dave Sitek has assembled a core band of Hipsterberg types, members of Celebration, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and his band, who easily shuffle between Louisiana fog and New Order nightclub, often in the same song. Only one, "Green Grass," falls into the trap of sounding too Waits-ian. Johansson’s voice isn’t awful and has a pleasant, young Linda Thompson affect to it. Her lack of maturity helps her bring something old man Tom can no longer bring to "I Don’t Wanna Grow Up" — a literalness that the song never had before.

c. 2008 LEO Weekly

The Wedding Present

El Rey
(Vibrant)

Long one of the most underappreciated bands of the post-punk and indie rock eras, The Wedding Present continues to give us delightfully good records full of wonderful songs, and most of you unfortunate friends and neighbors will never get to hear them. I wish I could make mix CDs for all of you, really, I do, but I just can’t. Can you please just listen to me this one time? I promise they’re not weird or anything. They’re just English and, at this point, middle-aged.

Essentially, though, this is pop music, played with guitars and a bass and drums. OK, the guy singing (David Gedge) isn’t the "best" singer, in the Nat King Cole sense of the word ... man, do we have to go through this every time?



His lyrics are very clever and interesting little stories, like a modern day Ray Davies of the Kinks. For you younger hipsters, I hate to play the Albini card, but he recorded this disc, as he has recorded other WP discs before — he’s a fan, as was Cobain. The music pops and rocks, like the Buzzcocks, but with more texture and maturity.

They just never got enough promotion — here’s a little bit.

c. 2008 LEO Weekly