Pete Yorn & Scarlett Johansson - Break Up
Label: Atco
Year: 2009
Duration: 29 minutes
Reviewer Rating
User Rating
One of the world's most famous actresses and one of its most underrated singer-songwriters meet, make an album of relationship duets in a garage and then don't release it for three years.
That's the story behind this 'Break Up', a record which can't really do anything for Johansson's profile but hopefully will for Yorn's.
Inspired by the Bardot/Gainsbourg collaborations of the 1960s, each sings his/her side of the story, with you willing both on to a happy ending.
Yorn's sense of pop dynamics is as finely tuned as ever and what Johansson's voice lacks in range she makes up for in husky allure.
The complaint is that it's all over far too quickly and 'Break Up' doesn't feel as complete as short classics like The Lemonheads' 'It's a Shame About Ray' or Plush's 'More You Becomes You'.
Yorn and Johansson should get together again and spend more time in that garage - and not wait until 2012 to let us hear what happened.
Harry Guerin
