The years are littered with actors who have tried to sing from Joey Lawrence to Jennifer Love Hewitt (is it too early to say Scarlett Johansson singing career is a failure). The few with even a little success were smart enough to team up with actual musician like Eddie Murphy with Rick James or Jennifer Lopez getting whatever rapper of the month to spit a few bars in her songs and remixes.
This is why Emily Deschanel (Scooter's Note: yeah I totally ment Zooey here, check comments for explaination) could have some staying power teaming up with indie guitarist M Ward and keeping her name off the marquee going with the band name She & Him. It doesn’t hurt the general public will probably mix her up with her sister Emily or even name one of her movies off the top of their head (she was Dorothy in the Sci-Fi Channel’s Tin Man).
The result of the two coming together is the equally descriptive album title, Volume One. The album turns out to be the best early seventies singer-songwriter album that was never actually released. Deschanal typically sings her song, most of which she wrote, over mostly sparse music with the occasional song that is reminiscent of the girl groups like I Was Made for You.
Of the old songs she gives a stab at, there is the super slow version of Smokey Robinson’s You Really Got a Hold on Me which is just an occasional strumming of the acoustic guitar and some harmonizing with Ward. The duo then turns The Beatles I Should Have Known Better into a Hawaiian luau and actually sounds better than it looks on paper. Yeah, the starlet can’t quite pull off Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, but that is the rare misstep on an otherwise decent debut.
Song to Download - I Should Have Known Better
Volume One gets a
![Terror Alert Level: Elevated [YELLOW]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6-iVFV0hXCTSYP16K_V0Rrxp3GqFrtBIJKeTUyQ2LpxZQ9XKHFj6QGtqqa7oxhLadLV8vUj8R84AftD8IKUSfN0u_u0CYDtJwhrpCPN2DBWquAIDv0jbVlhZL0mDFKlPKluGyxw/s400/small_elevated.png)
on my Terror Alert Scale.
Good review, but it looks like you've joined the public in mixing her up with her sister Emily (second paragraph).
ReplyDeleteMaybe you should leave that in, to prove your point.
I would like to say that it was intentional as way to highlight how easy it is to confuse the Deschanel girls, but when it comes down to it, I do not actually proof read anything that post. Here in lies why I never got an "A" in English class.
ReplyDeleteShe sang decently well in Elf ("Baby It's Cold Outside")
ReplyDeleteMy sources tell me she sang in Elf, but I skipped the movie because I figure you've seen one Will Ferrell movie, you've seen them. I just assume he acts like a teenage while screaming and accidentally breaking stuff.
ReplyDelete