The top 10 albums of 2008: No. 5

She & Him
Volume One

With Volume One, Zooey Deschanel shows that she's a natural songwriter, putting together a bouquet of countrypolitian, '60s pop and girl-group harmonies that's as wholesome as a sock-hop slow dance. She has a voice full of emotion, whether she's buoyant with possibility or biting her lip to keep her composure. A hint of twang sticks out here and there, and, affected or authentic, it's a nice touch.

But Volume One might have turned out differently if not for Him. The actress' savvy bandmate, M. Ward, helps make her songs all they can be, from providing guitar, keys and vocals to arranging the strings and being her mentor. As producer, he's the rootsy sage to her raw talent.

It's some talent she has: Her songs bump up comfortably to standards by Smokey Robinson and Lennon/McCartney, quite a feat for just about any artist, let alone an actress who professes that she started recording demos as a way to kill downtime. Yet her words reveal that it was a distraction with some dedication behind it.

"As an actor, you have a lot of free time," she told the Los Angeles Times last spring. "There's so much waiting around in hotel rooms and trailers. I was doing a movie a few years ago in a place where I didn't really know anyone, and I ended up recording these really elaborate demos of all these songs on my computer. Someone would be like, 'They're ready for you on set,' and I was like, 'I gotta finish these backing vocals!'"


Read my review of Volume One here.