Actors Who Play: An Album a Day

Featuring Steve Martin, Jackie Chan, Zooey Deschanel, and others

My friend Ken and I decided to listen to an album every day this year. Each week is themed. At the end of each week, we rank what we listened to. To be clear, we aren’t ranking every album that fits the theme. We are only ranking what we chose to listen to during the last seven days.

This week’s theme is “actors who play,” meaning albums by Hollywood’s finest. The only additional rule here is that the person must primarily be an actor. Judy Garland, for example, doesn’t count because she was known equally for her singing and acting. If you think of any of these artists, “actor” must jump to your mind first.

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#7 Let Them Talk by Hugh Laurie (2011)

From the first note of “St. James Infirmary,” I knew this album was going nowhere fast. Yes, actor and comedian Hugh Laurie is serviceable on the piano, but nearly every track on this record has been covered a million times. If you want to hear jazz-infused versions of “Swanee River” and “John Henry,” the last place you should turn is House, M.D.

#6 Break Up by Peter Yorn and Scarlett Johansson (2009)

Oscar nominee Scarlett Johansson teams up with singer-songwriter Peter Yorn for an album of cutesy, folksy duets. While Yorn does the heft of the work, Johansson lilting voice is a good fit for the project. The problem is that if you’ve heard one song, you’ve heard them all, making even the 28-minute runtime feel excessive.

#5 龍的心 by Jackie Chan (1996)

Was action star Jackie Chan a better singer than I was expecting? Yes. Would I ever listen to his music again? No. The production on 龍的心 is packed with too much over-the-top melodrama for my taste. That said, I do appreciate the effort that the Chan band put into these songs. The intensity in their playing—especially on the shredding electric guitar—is palpable.

#4 You’re Speaking My Language by Juliette & The Licks (2005 - Juliette Lewis)

Though Ken was upset that I had no idea who actress Juliette Lewis, he was jazzed that I enjoyed her record You’re Speaking My Language. That record has a bit of riot grrrl energy, albeit lacking the political edge of the genre, Lewis’s lyrics mostly focusing on more prosaic matters.

#3 Dead Man’s Bones by Dead Man’s Bones (2009 - Ryan Gosling)

This album sounds horrendous in the abstract: The Notebook star Ryan Gosling teams up with Zach Shields to make an album of spooky songs built around a children’s choir. But Gosling and Shields somehow thread the needle. There’s a beautiful weirdness to these 12 tracks, a few numbers even feeling transcendent.

#2 Rare Bird Alert by Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers (2011)

Many albums we listened to this week felt gimmicky. “Oh, that’s cute,” I would think to myself, “[INSERT ACTOR’S NAME HERE] decided to make an album.” You can’t say that about Steve Martin’s musical forays, though. The comedian is a seriously talented banjo player. On Rare Bird Alert, he surrounds himself with some even more talented musicians.

I loved this album for its musical performances. I love it for how steeped it is in the bluegrass tradition. I also love it for its songs, even when Martin is adapting his goofy “King Tut” for a string band. I say this with no disrespect to Steve Martin’s comedy, but if he spent more time strumming on the old banjo than writing jokes, I wouldn’t complain.

#1 Volume One by She & Him (2008 - Zooey Deschanel)

Scarlett Johansson’s folksy album of duets technically exists in the same universe as She & Him’s Volume One. But where Johansson and Peter Yorn feel like they’ve run out of ideas by track two, Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward almost never run out of steam.

The difference is in the song craft. Deschanel and Ward are writing in the tradition of the great 1960s songsmiths. And they’ve done their homework, so much so that when they sneak in a cover of “You Really Got a Hold On Me,” you might mistake it for an original.

The only low point on this record—and the reason I said that “Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward almost never run out of steam”—is a cover of “Swing Low Sweet Chariot.” Deschanel’s voice doesn’t suit the spiritual heft of that song. But 12 out of 13 songs landing is quite the hit rate.

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