Review: Scarlett Johansson: Anywhere I Lay My Head

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Scarlett Johansson Tries Hard To Assert Indie Cred With New Album [Critical Mass]
Published 5/20/2008 by Maria Mercedes Lara at Jezebel
... a covers album where the interesting objective of reimagining Tom Waits songs with Arcade Fire-type soundscapes plays second fiddle to disguising her expressionless voice. With her low monotone, ScarJo aims for Nico but comes off like Sin ad on sopors never more so than on the zombielike ''I Don't Wanna Grow Up.'' In burying Johansson's vocals so deeply in the druggy ambiance, producer David Andrew Sitek (of TV on the Radio) means well but ends up obscuring Waits' great tunes Pitchfork : On several songs, Johansson gets lost in Sitek's swelling production, which may suggest a ...

Can Scarlett Johansson sing?
Published 5/28/2008 by Stephanie Zacharek at Salon
... penetrable, something you're not quite ready for, and "Anywhere I Lay My Head" captures that sense of adventure: Johansson comes at these songs modestly, and with a degree of quizzical affection. She's not attempting to reinvent them, only to reimagine them -- which is not that different from what an actor does when he or she is called upon to interpret a role. "Anywhere I Lay My Head" hasn't been unilaterally trashed by critics; it has received some favorable reviews, one in Pitchfork among them. But there have been plenty of potshots, too. In April, New York magazine's ...