Emma: **
Charlie: *
Emma: I like M. Ward. I think he brings a nice, refreshingly modern twist to a retro 60's sound. Sounds to me like he did a lot of the instrumentals and arrangements here. Unfortunately, though, he does very few of the vocals. That's where Zooey comes in. And, unfortunately, despite heavy production help in the form of generous reverbs, double-trackings, and softenings, she is first and foremost an actor. Not a singer. Nope. Her voice is styled as gentle and soothing, but is always thiiiis close to out of tune or out of breath or out of control, and lacking in original stylistic ideas, doing the Billie Holiday songs with the Billie Holiday stylings, the Elvis ones with his, etc. coming across as more karaoke than actual-musical-interpretation, or interesting...
Charlie: I was excited to listen to this one, having heard about She & Him from the hip city weeklies or whatever. Also Deschanel is good at the acting and Ward is good at the musics. However, this album ultimately disappoints: Deschanel brings extraordinarily little to each track, combining unconfident singing, dodgy pitch and an utter lack of interpretation into a sort of karaoke album. It sounds like a hobbyist's release— which, fair enough, this isn't either of their main careers— but I don't feel any need to listen to this again.
On the playlist?: Nope.
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