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Scarlett's Waits Tribute: Unnecessary, But Not Bad

Johansson revisits legendary croaker's catalog

By Nick McMaster,  Newser Staff

Posted May 14, 2008 1:15 PM CDT

(Newser) – “Even the most sympathetic critics,” writes Tom Breihan for the Village Voice, have to grant that Anywhere I Lay My Head, Scarlett Johansson’s Tom Waits tribute album, “is a fundamentally ridiculous enterprise, almost stunning in its total lack of need to exist.” That said, Breihan thinks the record is actually pretty good, made stronger by the fact that it sounds absolutely nothing like Tom Waits.

Johansson tapped TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek to produce the record, and he renders Waits originals into warm, shoegazey layers of sound, of which Johansson’s voice is only a tiny part of the larger mosaic. This smartly takes the focus off of her celebrity, while honoring “the faraway mystery of the Waits originals without ever attempting to replicate their sound.”

Scarlett Johansson arrives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute Gala, in New York on Monday, May 5, 2008.
Scarlett Johansson arrives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute Gala, in New York on Monday, May 5, 2008.   (AP Photo/Evan Agostini)
Actress Scarlett Johansson arrives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute Gala, in New York on Monday, May 5, 2008.
Actress Scarlett Johansson arrives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute Gala, in New York on Monday, May 5, 2008.   (AP Photo/Evan Agostini)
In this Oct. 15, 2007 file photo, actress Scarlett Johansson arrives at Elle magazine's 14th Annual Women in Hollywood tribute in Los Angeles.
In this Oct. 15, 2007 file photo, actress Scarlett Johansson arrives at Elle magazine's 14th Annual Women in Hollywood tribute in Los Angeles.   (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian, file)
Actress Scarlett Johansson listens as she meets the media during a news conference about the movie 'The Other Boleyn Girl' at the International Film Festival Berlinale in Berlin, Germany, Friday, Feb. 15, 2008.
Actress Scarlett Johansson listens as she meets the media during a news conference about the movie 'The Other Boleyn Girl' at the International Film Festival Berlinale in Berlin, Germany, Friday, Feb....   (AP Photo/Hermann J. Knippertz)
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