by SHANE SINNOTT

Hey-o! Scarlett Johansson is releasing an album on May 20, and it has leaked. If this doesn’t seem laughable already, get this—it was recorded by Dave Sitek, of TV on the Radio, and features mostly covers of Tom Waits songs. WTF? As a service to you wankers, I tracked down some songs. The title track, “Anywhere I Lay My Head,” and “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up,” both Waits covers, are available at these two links respectively: tinyurl.com/6c4xku, tinyurl.com/3u9yaj.

It’s really weird. The approach seems to be to try to drown everything in layers of Kevin Shields and Jesus and Mary Chain-type distortion (wonder where that idea came from?) in the hopes that this will distract from the fact that the girl can’t sing. The whole thing seems like a ridiculous exercise in establishing indie cred, and it’s so uninspired that I honestly can’t imagine anyone sitting down and listening to this record. I’m guessing if there’s any hullabaloo, it’s going to be over the only original song on the record (and since she doesn’t play any instruments, it’s anyone’s guess how that songwriting credit was worked out) called “Song for Jo,” which you can download at tinyurl.com/5jmuaz. Sadly, it’s not really any different from the covers—its sound like she’s drowning. I really don’t get this, though with the aforementioned Waits and TVOTR connections, plus David Bowie and Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) involved, I’m sure you’ll hear more about this album in coming weeks.

Nine Inch Nails, meanwhile, fresh off of making $1.6-million in the first week of their Radiohead-style release for Ghosts I-IV, are offering their latest, The Slip, as an honest to goodness, 100 per cent free album. Fans can go to theslip.nin.com/ to download the record in its entirety. There’s no pay-what-you-can-for-low-quality bullshit with this. They offer regular MP3s, the lossless formats FLAC and M4A, and even the “higher than CD quality” 24/96 WAVE. Take that, Thom Yorke!