Over the past few years, a number of hip actresses have teamed up with established male singer-songwriters for musical projects. Some are one-off albums, while others have become popular indie acts. Can you identify which of these actress-singer duos are real and which are fake?
1. Michelle Williams and Conor Oberst.
Indie movie darling Williams met the Bright Eyes singer while filming Blue Valentine in Nebraska. The pair hit it off and wrote and recorded a handful of songs, which they released under the perfectly believable name, The Cornhusker EP.
2. Scarlett Johansson and Pete Yorn.
The Lost In Translation star teamed up with “For Nancy” singer-songwriter Pete Yorn for 2009’s Break Up, a not-at-all fictional album of sweet pop duets.
3. Rashida Jones and Stephan Jenkins.
Community’s Rashida Jones, who is the daughter of Quincy Jones, teamed up with Stephan Jenkins of Third Eye Blind way back in 2007 for a musical web series called Jonesin’ for Jenkins, which is a perfectly valid name for something like that.
4. Kat Dennings and Chris Carrabba.
When the Nick and Norah star expressed a desire to sing, her agent hooked her up with one of his other clients, Dashboard Confessional frontman Chris Carrabba. The result was a cover of “Jennifer Juniper” that appeared on the 2010 Donovan tribute album, There is a Mountain, which absolutely exists.
5. Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward.
Elf star Zooey Deschanel and troubadour M. Ward formed the retro-inspired and totally above-board She & Him in 2006, and have toured extensively and released three albums, including a Christmas album.
6. Chloë Sevigny and Shawn Mullins.
When actress and fashion designer Chloë Sevigny recorded the irony-soaked but totally conceivable 2005 single, “So, Um, Anyway,” many wondered who the skeevy dude in the video was. It was singer-songwriter Shawn Mullins, who you may remember from the 1998 hit, “Lullaby.” Mullins apparently acted as the track’s producer.
7. Ellen Page and David Bazan.
The Juno star has been recording her own lo-fi acoustic tunes for years, and in 2009 she and Pedro the Lion’s David Bazan recorded an album of twee duets plausibly entitled when it gets heavy you will be the light.
8. Evan Rachel Wood and Sufjan Stevens.
While Evan Rachel Wood dated Marilyn Manson for years and sang on the soundtrack of Across the Universe, another musical credit came about in 2011 when she contributed vocals to Sufjan Stevens’s Chicago Story, his almost unimaginable concept album about the short-lived NBC series of the same name.
9. Mandy Moore and Ryan Adams.
Actress and pop star Mandy Moore married singer-songwriter Ryan Adams in 2009, but it took until 2012 for the two to work together. They have been writing together for her next album, which she hopes to record in his very real studio.
10. Michelle Trachtenberg and Ben Gibbard.
Michelle Trachtenberg became the third Gossip Girl star (after Taylor Momsen and Leighton Meester) to become a recording artist when she enlisted the Death Cab For Cutie singer to produce her 2011 folk pop album, the reasonable-sounding Spy Eyes.
Answer key: 1. false; 2. true; 3. false; 4. false; 5. true; 6. false; 7. false; 8. false; 9. true; 10. false.
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posted by
Dave Shumka
on Jul 24, 2012