She and Him, Volume One

She & Him are actress (and now singer/songwriter) Zooey Deschanel and “indie rock” stalwart M. Ward and their first CD together is an enormously entertaining and engaging collection of delightful pop songs.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of Ms. Dechanel’s movies…something I guess I need to rectify soon via my trusty Netflix account…so I came to this record with no expectations (she sang onscreen in the movie Elf and acquitted herself quite well...see here) She is, it turns out, a very fine songwriter (she wrote 9 of the 13 tracks here by herself and co-wrote another) with a lovely, plaintive, achingly honest and soulful voice The bittersweet country tune, “Change is Hard”, my favorite song on the disc, is ample testament to her ability to bring powerful resonance to the table; the same is true for another pure country song, the gently loping and twanging “Got Me”.

Despite dealing with matters of the heart, the songs here are never cloying. The driving pop-rocker “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?” (features some great harmonies and guitar work) and the equally up-tempo “This is Not a Test” (which would be a huge hit single in a more fair world) are both gently acerbic but life and love affirming at the same time.

The playing is rock solid all the way through with guitars, pianos, drums, and strings providing tuneful, beefy support without overwhelming the singer.

Deschenel’s voice is sometimes layered to good effect on tunes like the 60’s-style girl group romps of “I Was Made for You” and “Sweet Darlin’” (the latter of which sounds like some great lost Brian Wilson tune that She and Him rediscovered and brought to the 21^st century), the peppy backing vocals on “Black Hole”, which somehow manages to be wistful and jaunty at the very time, and the soaring vocals that come in on the back end of the wistful opener “Sentimental Heart”.

The covers here include a grand, stripped down version of Smokey Robinson’s “You Really Got a Hold on Me” (with a beautiful lead vocal by Deschanel and sweet guitar and harmony vocals by Ward), a lilting take on the Beatles’ “I Should Have Known Better” (featuring the duo trading leads over a tasty tropical beat), and the lovely a cappella harmonies on the traditional “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”, which closes the disc on a lovely, low-key note.

Volume One is destined to continue to spend lots and lots of time in my music player and I certainly hope that there will be a Volume Two for She & Him in the future.

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Below is a video of She & Him's version of "You Really Got a Hold on Me" (set to clips from old cartoons for some reason.)

Guilt by Association

It is probably safe to assume that some amount of irony underscores this CD…a compilation of “indie” artists covering “guilty pleasure” pop songs…but the artists understood that to make this work they were going to have to play it straight (smirking through their performances would just make them come off as smug) and that’s what they did.

The net cast here is pretty wide…Paula Abdul (with Luna finding a understated soulful groove in “Straight Up”) to Fall Out Boy (Goat slipping into a grand, heartfelt, mid-tempo reading of “Sugar We’re Going Down”), Blue Oyster Cult (Mike Watt’s beefy spin through “Burning for You”), to High School Musical (Porter Block turns “Breaking Free” into a soaring, credible rock and roll song), the Spice Girls (Jim O’Rourke finding the heart of “Viva Forever” with some great guitar work included in the melodic mix) to System of a Down (Casey Shea’s lush take on “Chop Suey”), Shania Twain (Mark Mulcahy’s sweetly, passionately ragged cover of “From This Moment On”) to Oasis (Devendra Banhart’s dreamy, acoustic version of “Don’t Look Back in Anger”)…but the songs are stripped down, recast, and re-imagined to sometimes very engaging effect (stripped of their pop gloss and over-produced vocals, some of the songs emerge surprisingly poignant in their new incarnations.)

Petra Haden’s glorious, multi-tracked a cappella (including the guitar solos) version of the Journey chestnut “Don’t Stop Believin’”, for example, kicks off the disc with a shimmering burst of invention while Will Oldham (aka “Bonnie Prince Billy”) strips the melodrama away from Mariah Carey’s “Can’t Take That Away” and discovers an affecting song (Geoff Farina pulls off the same cool trick with a cool acoustic take on Eddie Money’s “Two Tickets to Paradise”.) The Concretes cover Take That's "Back for Good" with great vocals and a tasty horn-driven chorus.

The Woody Jackson Orchestra and Money Mark update “Love’s Theme”, the syrupy instrumental hit from the 70’s by Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra, with a nice 21^st Century groove while hanging on to a sweetly nostalgic feel while The Mooney Suzuki attacks Cher’s cheesy (I admit that it’s cheesy while also admitting that I rather like it) “Just Like Jesse James” with fierce relish and comes out with a winner even as it hews close to original arrangement. Superchunk turns “Say My Name” into a snarling, pulsating rocker…something that Destiny’s Child couldn’t have ever imagined that it could be.

If someone is going to cover a well-known song, they should (to coin a cliché) “make it their own”…and that’s exactly what these fine folks do on these “guilty pleasures” to fine effect indeed. Guilt by Association is fun and engaging and what more could you ask from a compilation like this?

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Engine Room Recordings, which released the CD, held a contest for fans to create videos for some of the songs. Below is one made for Petra Haden's version of "Don't Stop Believin'" (other videos available for viewing at the link in the previous sentence.)

I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning

There was a time when music critics would have anointed Bright Eyes's frontman Conor Oberst...with his earnest, ragged voice (self-mocked at one point with the couplet,"I could have been a famous singer, if I had somebody else's voice"), the sparkling seriocomic wordplay of his lyrics, and his powerful feel for enticing melodies...as the "New Dylan".

Luckily for Oberst, the critics finally got hip to the fact that nobody was looking for a new Dylan since the old one was still alive and kicking and still making good to great (and sometimes even downright wonderful) records and so, reluctantly one supposes, they stopped anointing people.

This collection is ragged, heartfelt, wryly poetic, insanely catchy and utterly engaging...from the wistful opening of "At the Bottom of Everything" to the controlled cacophony of the coda to the closing rocker "Road to Joy".

Extra points for bringing in the peerless Emmylou Harris to sing harmony on three cuts.

Cool beans all the way round.