Blog Archive

Subscription

RSS Feed

blog

I LOVE HER


Posted by Hartley On Feb 4, 2008

BRM blog image

So I just want to say this now, to say this first, first like, even before we have the entire record in-house, first like even before I write an official blurb and post it on our homepage, or email you guys about it, or do an earth-shatteringly huge mailing on it - actress Zooey Deschanel has made the album of the year. She made this album with the most underated dude making music today, M. Ward. They have given this collaboration the unfortunate name of She & Him, and this fact just might be the only unfortunate thing about the 13 absolutely stunning songs that make up Volume 1 on Merge.

First off, for those paying attention, we should've always known Zooey could sing. Afterall, she did do a way better version of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" in this thing:

BRM blog image

than she really needed to. But still Zooey was an actress afterall, and so my mind smply reduced the beauteous tones coming forth from her lips as the simple product of computer, mixing, mastering, and CGI technology. I was wrong. As Volume 1 demonstrates again and again, Zooey has one of the most delightfully versatile voices I've heard in recent memory..um...or maybe ever. She comes off as both sweetly innocent, a tad flighty, and all the same, wounded, weighty, and wise: the serenader and the sage. In other words, she can be Carole King, Dionne Warwick, Petula Clarke, and Joanna Newsom too; often indulging her chameleon like urges, playfully, effortlessly swopping styles at a songs notice.

But her voice is only the beginning. Sure she covers standards like "You Really Got A Hold On Me," and The Beatles' "I Should Have Known Better," but the other bunch of Zooey-penned originals that dominate Volume 1, sound like time-tested classics in their own right: the piano-driven, "I Thought I Saw Your Face" would've been one of Carole King's greatest hits, had she indeed written it, "Take It Back," is such a heart-crushingly mature ballad dripping with a vocal performance that would make Billie Holiday blush it practically spits in the face of anyone just waiting to write Zooey off as yet another "quirky" young female, and of course, the album's centerpiece, "I Was Made For You," is such an infectious romp through girl-group wall-of-sound euphoria, it should effectively send The Pipettes back to their old waitressing gigs.

Now, somewhere else in the universe while Zooey was quietly keeping all of her talents to herself, M. Ward was making classic retro-folk records that always were markedly more breathtaking than any of the attention he managed to glean from them. And I guess that's the definition of a "musician's musician," to which Ward has been labeled time and again. She & Him should finally command him the respect that he very much deserves from the "outside world." Sure, he worked on that Jenny Lewis record, and has toured with Bright Eyes and My Morning Jacket, but with Zooey he finds the perfect muse to indulge all his musicologist obsessions from old-school country and western paens, to McCartney-esq Hawaiin-flavored cabaret pop, to late-evening Jazz ballads, and Byrds-flavored folk rock.

With She and Him Volume 1, Zooey and Matt have made not only what is destined to be one of the best albums of '08 - but they've made a modern classic. An actress proves, that well, she's way more than just an actress, and a modern marvel gets to flex his muscles a little bit. This thing should be a HUGE success.

Here's She and Him's "I Was Made For You":

Share