fluxion23

I heard of this album from magazines months ago, but I never actually heard it until the fine fellows at Sound Opinions mentioned it on their show. They did so only to ridicule it, but when they played the 30 seconds of the record that was supposed to demonstrate how intolerable it is, I thought, "Oh my god, this is great." After spending a week or so with the record, I've decided that neither of our first impressions were correct. It's not great. But neither is it garbage, and it's not dismissable. Johansson's voice is uneven and uncontrolled, but that's not a problem by itself, and she has a surprisingly deep and evocative sound at the low end of her range. It's true that the idea of an album of Tom Waits covers stinks of vanity and overstretching, but in large part thanks to the production of Dave Sitek (of TV on the Radio), the record never sounds like an under-talented starlet making a record of Tom Waits covers. Even when it's not working -- which I'd say is about half the time -- it's not because it's a put-on, or a pony show, or any of the other things that many people have accused this record of being. Johansson's main vocal touchstone seems to be Sinead O'Connor. The record oozes raw earnestness, from both vocalist and producer, and if that's sometimes a bad thing, it's not at all the bad thing that you expected to hear. Definitely worth a listen or ten.