She & Him Can Teach Hollywood How to Sing

The problem with being a famous actress is that the last thing you want to do is act. Instead, all you want to do is sing.

And sing they do, because all famous people are entitled to record at least one album, with little regard paid to whether they can actually sing or not. Hillary Duff, Paris Hilton, Russell Crowe, Don Johnson, Jared Leto; the list goes on. Does anyone remember the Lindsay Lohan experiment? Of course not; it was so horrible, your brain has blacked out the memory of her album’s buzzsaw effect on your ears and replaced it with the mental image of a small puppy, licking your face, just for the sake of your own sanity.

Yes, that’s right. Your childhood dog Marshmallow never actually existed. That was Lindsay Lohan and a touch of psychosis.

Sometimes, inexplicably, an actress can actually sing, and can actually write her own songs, and that most recent example of this is Zooey Deschanel.

Sure, she’s not all that famous, so I’m probably going to have to refresh your already warped memory. Remember the big sister in “Almost Famous”? Remember the love interest to Will Ferrell in “Elf”? Trillian in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”?

Yes, that’s her. Zooey Deschanel:object of affection to every cinema or indie music nerd out there. Just to lay eyes on her is to know she seems to be a really pleasant person, with her warm face and those big, blue eyes that can melt a man’s heart into a puddle of goo, and you wonder if maybe, were you two to meet, she’d like to go get a cup of coffee somewhere …

Er … that’s if you’re into girls who are not my awesome and understanding girlfriend, Annette, who is probably reading this, and should probably be reminded that I don’t even like coffee. It was all rhetorical, sugarpie; Iswear.

Anyway, Deschanel’s cashed in her good-for-one-album-with-your- name-on-it certificate the right way, enlisting the help of one of the very best of singer-songwriters today, M. Ward, to record “Volume One”under the moniker of She & Him.

It certainly helps that Deschanel truly has a beautiful, sublimely delicate singing voice. It’s in the register of some of the classic singers of AMradio, like June Carter or the Andrews Sisters.

In fact, the entire arrangement of songs harks back to an older style of sound and songwriting. Everything sounds very mature and nostalgic, which is due to the production savvy of Ward, and suited perfectly with Deschanel’s seeming reverence for rockers and country artists like Neil Young, Carole King, Tammy Wynette or George Jones.

Nods to elder inspiration come in the choice of two cover songs, Smokey Robinson’s “You Really Got a Hold on Me,” and the Beatles’ “I Should Have Known Better,” which are the only two songs to feature Ward on backup vocals.

As a whole, “Volume One” is a textbook for how any actor or actress should go about treading into unknown waters. It doesn’t come off as a vanity project for a Hollywood starlet. She’s paired up with an artist who lends instant credibility to the project. Every song is saturated in reverence to a history of important songwriters and songs.

This album is a warm and fuzzy delight, just like faux memories of a childhood puppy.

(Reach columnist Kelly Hagen at 250-8259 or kelly.hagen@bismarcktribune.com.)

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