Break Up

 

 

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The duet album "Break Up" was recorded in 2006, two years before Johansson's official debut Anywhere I Lay My Head, which got mixed reactions, and was regarded as the ambitious young Hollywood starlet's amateurish vanity project.
On this album, which reflects on a relationship falling apart, she teams up with New Jersey pop singer-songwriter Pete Yorn: their goal is to capture Serge Gainsbourg's recordings with Brigitte Bardot.
Yorn and Johansson sing together on each of Break Up's nine tracks, offering a musical account of the beginning, middle and end of a tormented love-affair. The songs - Yorn told USA Today - were in fact recorded two years before "Anywhere I Lay My Head" - and Johansson recorded her parts in just two afternoon sessions.
What's in it for the duo to have this shelved artefact brought to light now? Johansson says "I always thought of it as just a small project between friends, but it perfectly captures where I was in my life at the time".
Though Pete said the album's concept came to him in a dream, its musical inspiration is precise: Serge Gainsbourg's 1967 and 1968 albums with Brigitte Bardot. But while Gainsbourg was a notorious Gallic sexpot, Yorn is just a rugged "indie-dreamboat" from New Jersey.
Instead of the sensuality of Gainsbourg and Bardot, Yorn offers a chugging mid-tempo rock song - with Johannson's voice resembling that of Amy Winehouse: despite the foxiness of Johannson's vocals, their duets are less steamy.
Still, this is a tuneful and convincing collection of guitar pop embellished with likeable country and folk influences.
Eight of Break Up's songs were written by Yorn, one by Big Star's Chris Bell, and all were produced by Quincy Jones's grandson Sunny Levine. A brief nine-song fling, this compact and bijou collaboration works worst when it's overreaching itself - a slightly pointless cover version of Chris (Big Star) Bell's "I Am the Cosmos" - and best when it keeps things understated (the Yorn-penned "Clean", which finds the pair declaring "Would you talk to me?/ I want everything to be so clean").
Johansson has yet to fully find her own voice, and instead employs a smoky Winehouse twang, but it meshes nicely with Yorn's laid-back drawl and breathy falsetto.
All in all, this is not a masterpiece, but certainly it is a good, mellow album where a young, brilliant actress teams up with a run-of-the-mill talented American pop singer-songwriter, whose flimsy voice is no match for her ...Billie Holiday/Amy Winehouse-esque tones: the results are some very enjoyable pop songs.
Bonnie And Clyde (Ltd Ed) (Ri)
The Originals
Initials Sg
Jane Et Serge (Ltd Ed) (Ri)
I Am the Cosmos
Back And Fourth

Okay. First of all the musical talent on this album belongs to Pete Yorn,
despite what these other reviewers have said. Scarlett Johanssen has a decent voice but it is best kept in a support role here. When it is relegated to some sweet counterpoint on the choruses of two of the better songs "Shampoo" and the single "Relator" the results are sublime. Anybody who doesn't "get" Pete Yorn and his sometimes spare arrangements or fragile, cracking vocals won't like much else here. To be honest, as a Pete Yorn fan other than the two songs mentioned-this isn't what I would call one of his better efforts. It's got enough going on for me to recommend if you think Yorn can do no wrong, and your curious about this pairing.

I enjoyed the CD Anywhere I Lay My Head. Not all the songs were favourites, but most of them were. The thing that bugged me about AILMH was that Scarlett J. held back. She seemed timid and unsure, unsure of her voice and unsure of her talent.

In Break Up, she let herself go (not much, but it's a start) and showed a strong, amazing voice, stronger and purer than Amy Winehouse (one reviewer compared SJ to AW).

The only downside for me to Break Up is the nails-down-a-chalkboard, whiny and weak-voiced Pete Yorn. To say his singing sucks is one of the understatements of the new millenium. I shudder at the thought of even calling most of his work on the CD "singing" as I've heard a yak in heat belt out more soothing sounds, and with a stronger voice.

If Scarlett J. laid down SOLO tracks with the confidence and enthusiasm of Break Up, she'd blow people's minds. And she'd sell a boat load of CDs!

Yes, this CD was done before AILMH, and yes, this CD has a "theme", but the bottom line is:
If you're a true Scarlett J. fan, then this is a CD you can't miss... just have your finger hovering over the fast-forward button.

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