Music
Classics
Adorkable folk-pop duo cut a charming standards set
Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward's She and Him have always been fundamentally rooted in musical nostalgia for sunny Sixties pop. For their fifth album – a covers record composed largely of pre-rock standards popularized by singers like Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald – the duo shift focus to the Forties and Fifties. The surprisingly loungy results are unusually daring for these two: Deschanel and Ward pare back the melodrama of "Unchained Melody" and Johnny Mathis' "It's Not for Me to Say," incorporating midcentury jazz and soul crooning into their endearing retro-kitsch. The combination is charming.