Scarlett Johansson Covers Jeff Buckley For "He's Just Not That Into You" Soundtrack

Scarlett Johansson the budding rocker is back with a new cover, this time taking on Jeff Buckley for the He's Just Not That Into You soundtrack. Surprisingly, despite Johansson's desire to cover Leonard Cohen after last year's Tom Waits-inspired Anywhere I Lay My Head, the actress opted not to rerecord the Buckley-via-Cohen hit "Hallelujah," but instead to cover Buckley's own "Last Goodbye" (listen to it here via Stereogum). Whereas Johansson's vocals were often obscured by producer Dave Sitek's all-star production work on Anywhere, this time around Johansson's vocal cords are in the forefront as she croons over a sparse piano. While it's not nearly as beautiful as Buckley's original version, we don't hate it nearly as much as other music blogs seem to.

In other news, this He's Just Not That Into You soundtrack is somehow actually pretty decent. In addition of the Johansson, who's also in the film, the soundtrack features My Morning Jacket's "I'm Amazed," Talking Heads' "This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)," the Replacements' "Can't Hardly Wait," plus tracks from Wilco, R.E.M., the Cure and a whole bunch of other artists we couldn't imagine affiliating themselves with a movie we absolutely have no desire to see. The soundtrack hits stores February 3rd, the film hits theaters February 6th.

Related Stories:

• Scarlett Johansson Ponders Album of Original Tunes or Leonard Cohen Covers
• How Scarlett Johansson and David Bowie Got Together: Album Preview
• Scarlett Johansson Album Available Online; Read the Review

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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