Listen as Yorn, Johansson 'Break Up'
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news ... lbum_N.htm

By Edna Gundersen, USA TODAY

The melodic relationship arc of singer/songwriter Pete Yorn and actress Scarlett Johansson: They get together, sing a few love songs and break up.

It's not exactly tragic, since Break Up is a collection of duets the pair recorded with producer Sunny Levine. Yorn's eight original compositions and Big Star founder Chris Bell's I Am the Cosmos form a song cycle that chronicles a tempestuous affair. The album, out Sept. 8 on Atco/Rhino, was inspired by Serge Gainsbourg's 1960s recordings with Brigitte Bardot, a concept that came to Yorn in a dream. He later reached out to Johansson, who sewed up her vocals in two afternoon sessions. A free stream of opening tune Relator is available at thebreakupalbum.com.

Break Up was recorded two years before Johansson released her debut album of Tom Waits covers, 2008's Anywhere I Lay My Head. Yorn will release his fourth studio album, Back and Fourth, June 23.

Here 'tis:



Product Description
Includes eight original compositions by Pete/Scarlett in the spirit of Serge Gainsbourg's recording with Brigitte Bardot. The album re-enacts the tempestuous course of a love affair on the rocks. Featuring an interpretation of the art-rock classic 'I Am the Cosmos' by the late Chris Bell co-founder of Big Star. 'Break Up' is Johansson's 2nd release with Atco, following her debut, 'Anywhere I Lay My Head'. The album had its genesis in the aftermath of a breakup in 2006. After Yorn was unable to sleep for a week, he finally dozed off, only to wake with a start just minutes later. What had awakened him was a dream. "I sat up in bed, and the whole thing was in my head, fully formed," Yorn says, sounding as if he still doesn't quite believe it. "I suddenly felt like I really needed to make a record in the style of Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot. Not that it had to sound like that, but it had to be a guy-and-girl conceptual thing. So then I asked myself, 'Who's Brigitte Bardot today? It's Scarlett Johansson.'" Yorn gave Johansson a call. Intrigued by his out-of-the-blue invitation, she decided to go for it. "Pete told me that he'd had a dream that we recorded an album together," she recalls, "and with that momentum, he had written eight songs that he'd wanted to record pretty low-key. I've always loved Pete's voice and have been friends with him for some time. It sounded like an interesting little adventure. He used the Serge and Brigitte recordings as reference for the ambiance he was trying to capture. He liked the idea of two people vocalizing their relationship through duets."

1. Relator
2. Wear And Tear
3. I Don't Know What To Do
4. Search Your Heart
5. Blackie's Dead
6. I Am The Cosmos
7. Shampoo
8. Clean
9. Someday

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002AOWXO0/?tag=imwan-20

I'm liking that single...very much a mid-60s Nancy Sinatra feel to the recording, but it's unmistakably a Yorn composition. I kinda like Scarlett's voice here.

Surprisingly not bad, but why is Scarlett trying to sound like Amy Winehouse?

Almost certainly not trying...this was recorded in 2006, before any of Winehouse's stuff was released in the US.

The track "Relator" is now available as an MP3 single:



http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002B2BR7A/?tag=imwan-20