It's really not supposed to go this way. Actors from Eddie Murphy to Don Johnson to Lindsay Lohan record albums so that we can laugh at their hubris and casually dismiss their efforts. The story is so common it's created a Hollywood archetype: the actor-turned-singer-turned-punchline. But Zooey Deschanel is rewriting the script. With She & Him's Volume One, her first collaboration with M. Ward, she proved that not only could she act, write songs, and sing, but she could do them all very well, with a sparkle of personality glinting in those big eyes and bigger voice.
Volume Two picks up almost exactly where Volume One left off, with Deschanel still playing a smart, sensitive young woman often on the unrequited end of love but never letting romantic disappointment get her down: "Sometimes lonely isn't sad," she declares on the stately opener "Thieves". She's still the headstrong heroine, though: "Why do I always want to sock it to you hard?" she wonders on "Over It Over Again", sounding as playfully frustrated as Loretta Lynn. And Ward remains content to cede her the spotlight, toiling behind the camera. He dresses her songs in deceptively simple SoCal folk rock, dusty cowboy-trail country music, and crisp Brill Building pop. The similarities to Volume One don't make Volume Two redundant, but reassuring: It's not typecasting if the role is this complex.
On the sequel, Deschanel seems more confident as a singer, songwriter, and vocal arranger. She still has more personality than range, but has learned to maneuver around the parts she can't nail in order to sell them. Transforming herself into her own version of the Watson Twins, Deschanel often backs up herself and channels 1960s country gold classics on the languid "Me and You" and the plaintive "Brand New Shoes", pointing to older styles but never sounding beholden to the past. Her ah-has and mm-hmms make her cover of Skeeter Davis' "Gonna Get Along Without You Now" sound impossibly perky, as if she's lighter for having dumped that creep, and on closer "If You Can't Sleep", Ward layers her humming into a gentle orchestra that add s to the song's lullaby sweetness.
He has a lot of tricks like that up his sleeves. If Volume One seemed a bit compartmentalized, each song working one idea or genre, Volume Two sounds much more synthesized as Ward mixes so many styles into each song. It never plays like an M. Ward album, though, as he tailors the music to fit her deceptively simple songs. As Deschanel fashions a romantic metaphor out of the myth of Orpheus, Ward adds some Beach Boys orchestration to reinforce that sense of longing, that rolling snare suggesting a slow, painful look backwards. An unlikely protégé of Owen Bradley, Ward adds countrypolitan strings to many of these songs, but never crowds her vocals or steps on her lines. In fact, it's easy to forget he's even there, so that his verse on their cover of NRBQ's "Ridin' in My Car" has the force of a surprise cameo, turning the he-said/she-said story into a hipster Grease.
Even as they look to the past for inspiration-- specifically, to some never-was heyday of 60s radio-- they aren't making a period piece on Volume Two. What makes the album so distinctive isn't just the sound of her voice, the quality of her songwriting, or even the resourcefulness of his arrangements, but their joint insistence that these old sounds have as much to say nowadays as they ever did. In that regard, She & Him has given Deschanel her best role yet, one that shows off her charm and intelligence to best effect-- one that she is essentially writing for herself.
— Stephen M. Deusner, March 22, 2010 (pithcfork)
Tracklist:
01 Thieves
02 In the Sun [ft. Tilly and the Wall]
03 Don't Look Back
04 Ridin' in My Car (NRBQ cover)
05 Lingering Still
06 Me and You
07 Gonna Get Along Without You Now (Skeeter Davis cover)
08 Home
09 I'm Gonna Make It Better
10 Sing
11 Over It Over Again
12 Brand New Shoes
13 If You Can't Sleep
2cents; Very candy pop for my taste yet there is something about their knowledge of music history (as shown in the cover songs and influence that gives me the go ahead.
I think an Lp of pure dustbowl covers would be amazing. Maybe some Marty Robbins and a
version of The Davis Sisters's "I've Forgotten More" would be some suggestions? When Zoey get's less 'cheery' with the vocals(if possible) she could make anyone weep, I think. At the same time, her strength lies in the Spector 'Girl Group' aesthetic and that would be an interesting move as well, yet predictable. I know M. Ward has the LP collection to make it happen, which ever way.
Bottom line; worth the DL. (with some post edits)
GET DOWN HERE
It's really not supposed to go this way. Actors from Eddie Murphy to Don Johnson to Lindsay Lohan record albums so that we can laugh at their hubris and casually dismiss their efforts. The story is so common it's created a Hollywood archetype: the actor-turned-singer-turned-punchline. But Zooey Deschanel is rewriting the script. With She & Him's Volume One, her first collaboration with M. Ward, she proved that not only could she act, write songs, and sing, but she could do them all very well, with a sparkle of personality glinting in those big eyes and bigger voice.
Volume Two picks up almost exactly where Volume One left off, with Deschanel still playing a smart, sensitive young woman often on the unrequited end of love but never letting romantic disappointment get her down: "Sometimes lonely isn't sad," she declares on the stately opener "Thieves". She's still the headstrong heroine, though: "Why do I always want to sock it to you hard?" she wonders on "Over It Over Again", sounding as playfully frustrated as Loretta Lynn. And Ward remains content to cede her the spotlight, toiling behind the camera. He dresses her songs in deceptively simple SoCal folk rock, dusty cowboy-trail country music, and crisp Brill Building pop. The similarities to Volume One don't make Volume Two redundant, but reassuring: It's not typecasting if the role is this complex.
On the sequel, Deschanel seems more confident as a singer, songwriter, and vocal arranger. She still has more personality than range, but has learned to maneuver around the parts she can't nail in order to sell them. Transforming herself into her own version of the Watson Twins, Deschanel often backs up herself and channels 1960s country gold classics on the languid "Me and You" and the plaintive "Brand New Shoes", pointing to older styles but never sounding beholden to the past. Her ah-has and mm-hmms make her cover of Skeeter Davis' "Gonna Get Along Without You Now" sound impossibly perky, as if she's lighter for having dumped that creep, and on closer "If You Can't Sleep", Ward layers her humming into a gentle orchestra that add s to the song's lullaby sweetness.
He has a lot of tricks like that up his sleeves. If Volume One seemed a bit compartmentalized, each song working one idea or genre, Volume Two sounds much more synthesized as Ward mixes so many styles into each song. It never plays like an M. Ward album, though, as he tailors the music to fit her deceptively simple songs. As Deschanel fashions a romantic metaphor out of the myth of Orpheus, Ward adds some Beach Boys orchestration to reinforce that sense of longing, that rolling snare suggesting a slow, painful look backwards. An unlikely protégé of Owen Bradley, Ward adds countrypolitan strings to many of these songs, but never crowds her vocals or steps on her lines. In fact, it's easy to forget he's even there, so that his verse on their cover of NRBQ's "Ridin' in My Car" has the force of a surprise cameo, turning the he-said/she-said story into a hipster Grease.
Even as they look to the past for inspiration-- specifically, to some never-was heyday of 60s radio-- they aren't making a period piece on Volume Two. What makes the album so distinctive isn't just the sound of her voice, the quality of her songwriting, or even the resourcefulness of his arrangements, but their joint insistence that these old sounds have as much to say nowadays as they ever did. In that regard, She & Him has given Deschanel her best role yet, one that shows off her charm and intelligence to best effect-- one that she is essentially writing for herself.
— Stephen M. Deusner, March 22, 2010 (pithcfork)
Tracklist:
01 Thieves
02 In the Sun [ft. Tilly and the Wall]
03 Don't Look Back
04 Ridin' in My Car (NRBQ cover)
05 Lingering Still
06 Me and You
07 Gonna Get Along Without You Now (Skeeter Davis cover)
08 Home
09 I'm Gonna Make It Better
10 Sing
11 Over It Over Again
12 Brand New Shoes
13 If You Can't Sleep
2cents; Very candy pop for my taste yet there is something about their knowledge of music history (as shown in the cover songs and influence that gives me the go ahead.
I think an Lp of pure dustbowl covers would be amazing. Maybe some Marty Robbins and a
version of The Davis Sisters's "I've Forgotten More" would be some suggestions? When Zoey get's less 'cheery' with the vocals(if possible) she could make anyone weep, I think. At the same time, her strength lies in the Spector 'Girl Group' aesthetic and that would be an interesting move as well, yet predictable. I know M. Ward has the LP collection to make it happen, which ever way.
Bottom line; worth the DL. (with some post edits)
GET DOWN HERE
