Calling her voice "faintly goth Marilyn Manson lost in a sonic fog", Rolling Stone mag - along with most music critics - has given a scathing review to the debut album of actress Scarlett Johansson. The 23-year-old released her vanity album Anywhere I Lay My Head, a collection of Tom Waits covers, this week.
Rolling Stone, rating the CD 2.5 out of 5 stars, complains: "Johansson's voice is unremarkable and her pitch sometimes unsteady; she's a faintly goth Marilyn Manson lost in a sonic fog."
Entertainment Weekly gave the project an average "C" grade and remarking that her "expressionless voice" was concealed "deeply in the druggy ambiance."
Maybe it's because Scarlett became too obsessed with recording "new sounds" for the album - such as owls, rather than work on her vocals.
She explains: "I spent days trying to record owls. I would hear them and then run outside to find them. My producer David Sitek told me to keep a mini-recorder with me all the time and record sounds I liked. That was the most elusive thing we recorded - the owls. We recorded all kinds of stuff - even rainstorms."
Um-kay.
The album, released on Rhino Records, contains 10 Waits covers with the exception of one original composition co-written by Johansson and TV On The Radio guitarist/keyboardist David Andrew Sitek.
