REVIEW: Scarlett Johansson's CD proves she should keep her day job

Memo to lovely, young actresses: Just because you're a performer who looks beautiful on camera does not mean you can sing.

Scarlett Johansson is undoubtedly young and lovely. But if she can sing, she doesn't show it on her debut album.

A collection of Tom Waits covers, "Anywhere I Lay My Head" would have been tricky for an experienced musician. Johansson is not an experienced musician. She was offered the opportunity after recording a Gershwin song for a benefit album.

She ambitiously set out to remake 10 Waits tunes, but fans of his guttural voice and industrial sound will likely be disappointed by the results.

Johansson's vocals are blurred with so much production that it could be any movie star behind the microphone. Worse, though, is her emotionless delivery of Waits' poetic lyrics. She sucks the sadness right out of the title track, making its woeful "I don't need anybody because I've learned to be alone" into a throwaway line.

Musically the album is a mixed bag. The title track sounds like it was preprogrammed on a department-store keyboard. Other songs have more interesting stylings, such as the music-box introduction to "I Wish I Was in New Orleans" and the Waits-ian clang on "Green Grass." David Bowie also lends his vocals to two tracks.

But none of it is enough to save Johansson's voice or convince listeners that this is more than a vanity project.

— Associated Press