Matt Morris, who directed all those great Got A Girl video teasers before Mary’s album was released, has posted several behind the scenes and blogged about how it all came together. Head to the gallery to check out the pics, but also be sure to visit Matt’s site to get all the info on the process. Also, I’ve added a photo of Mary recording an interview for NPR.
ABC News reviewed some of the latest new releases in the music industry that was recently released and Mary’s debut album was among them. Here’s what they had to say:
Dan The Automator and actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead struck up a friendship while he was scoring her movie “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” back in 2010. 4 years later, they have collaborated on disc as Got A Girl. I know what you are thinking. A career musician teaming with an actress? Does this sound like M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel’s She & Him? The answer is no. Automator is a hip-hop producer known for his work with Gorillaz, Handsome Boy Modeling School and Detron 3030. On the playfully titled, “I Love You But I Must Drive Off This Cliff Now,” they dabble in more Bond-theme type territory. Winstead’s hushed vocals coo along with a chilled sweetness. She’s perfectly justified in entering the music business. This doesn’t come off in the least bit like a groan-worthy vanity project.
At its best, the album recalls acts like Portishead and Bitter:Sweet. Fans of Lana Del Rey may also be wise to check out this album. It is orchestrated fun with a hip-hop edge and a huge nod to sixties kitsch. If you were a fan of Mono’s 1997 trip-hop masterpiece, “Formica Blues,” this record should be right up your alley.
Please note that digitally there is a deluxe edition available with all the instrumental beats included. No doubt this will lead to free-styling and mixtape gold in certain progressive hip-hop circles.
Focus Tracks:
“Heavenly” This closing track serves as a thesis statement to the album and it also showcases one of Winstead’s sharpest and most soaring melodies. It should be a single sent for pop airplay. The progressive pop stations would probably play it.
“There’s A Revolution” This track plays like a 21st Century, shopping mall answer to Tom Jones’ “It’s Not Unusual.” I mean that in the best way possible.
“I’ll Never Hold You Back” This track finds Winstead in gentle ballad mood with winning results. This is another potential single.
4 stars
First up, Mary spoke with the Belfast Telegraph where she says she was cautious about approaching a singing career. She explains she’d been approached about singing before, but nothing ever “struck me as a good idea, because it was just uninteresting pop that tried to cash in on whatever name value I might have as an actor. That’s not something I ever wanted to do,” she said.
Mary added: “Once I hooked up with Dan, I didn’t have any fears.
“I admired him so much musically, that working with him was great. And it was such a good opportunity for me personally, just as a fan of his, that I would never worry about what anyone else would think. You get people who are actors slash models slash singers slash whatever, just because it gets their name out there some more,” Winstead mused. “I’m not interested in that at all.”
Next, Way Too Indie gave Faults a 9/10 score:
Its premiere at SXSW earlier in the year started off the buzz (with our very own Dustin loving it to bits,) but Faults massively blinked on my radar when it was announced for Montreal’s genre festival Fantasia simply because I’ve become a bona fide Winstead fan, after her stunning performance in 2012’s Smashed. The streak continues here; she peels off Claire’s layers with agility and complete composure to reveal a fascinating and devilishly twisted character.
Complex meanwhile also loved the film:
Faults has the feel of a cinematic stage play, one in which Orser and Winstead get it on in an unpredictable battle of wits. First-time writer-director Riley Stearns tightly volleys around from laughs to creepiness, with a constant sense of mystery and subtle dread giving way to a well-earned surprise ending.
Be sure to click on any of the above links to read the reviews in full!
Pret-A-Porter caught up with Mary Elizabeth Winstead to talk about her new album, fashion and style. Check out some of the highlights below and then head to the gallery to check out the great, new pics!
We also see that you’ll be starring in the film Faults. How was working on that?
My husband (director Riley Stearns) and I worked on that film together. I’m so proud of it. He wrote and directed it. I’m in it and produced it as well. It was such a blast to make. We just know each other so well that it was so easy. He’s very, very specific in what he wants, which can be frustrating, sometimes, with directors who are specific and if you don’t understand their vision, that can be hard to get there, but because I know him so well, it was so exciting to know exactly what he had in his head and to execute that. It was really fun to go through that process together.
Sounds like you’re very much into vintage. How would you describe your personal style?
I’ve always been pretty feminine and retro. As I’m getting older, I’m starting to add a lot more elements of menswear and comfort, which maybe just a part of getting older. (Laughs.) I think on one hand, I’m starting to like to look a little more powerful so I like a lot of blazers and boots — things that I didn’t used to wear that I’m starting to venture toward like high-waist pants and suits. For a while there, I had nothing but dresses. I didn’t have any shirts or pants. It was just a closet full of ’50s to ’60s silhouette dresses. I’ve always been a dress girl, and I think part of it has a lot to do with my body shape, which is suited for dresses that are fitted on the waist and then A-lined out so I’ve always been drawn to that because it’s flattering and I’ve always been more drawn to vintage styles. I’m beginning to own my figure more and I don’t mind myself in pants. I used to be like, ‘I don’t want to show my hips and butt.’ I was so self-conscious, but now I’m like whatever. I’ll even do pajama pants sometimes because you know, they’re not always so flattering, but it’s comfortable and cool.
What’s been your biggest summer splurge lately?
I am working in Vancouver right now and there’s a store called Gravity Pope. I’m working there for four months and I’m planning on going there once a month to splurge on something because it’s this amazing store that has all the best stuff. I got these great Rag & Bone boots there. I’ve been wanting them for a long time, so I was just, like, ‘I’m going to do it.’
How long will you be in Vancouver for and what’s the project you’re working on?
I’ll be shooting there until the beginning of October. It’s called The Return. It’s a 10-episode series from A&E that’s based on a French show. It’s kind of dark, moody and mysterious. It’s about a small town where all these people who have died there start coming back for no reason. They’re not ghosts, zombies or anything. They’re just there and nobody knows why. It’s about their relationships and the consequences of them coming back where they’re not supposed to come back. It’s a lot of good drama.
Now that I Love You But I Must Drive Off This Cliff Now is out, new interviews have been released. First is an interview Mary did with Lucky Magazine. Aside from discussing Got A Girl, Mary also talks about her favorite fashion brands, style influences and what’s next for her. You can read it in full by clicking the link.
Lucky: How did you first meet Dan the Automator and how did you start working together?
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: I had been a fan of Dan for a long time, since like my late teens. I was really obsessed with his album Lovage, this project he did with Jennifer Charles and Mike Patton. When he said that we should try to do something together, I was just in shock because nobody cool like that had made an offer to work with me musically, so I was pretty excited and I didn’t know if he was serious or not. And it just slowly progressed. He lives in San Francisco and I live in L.A. so it was just emailing back and forth. He eventually sent me a track and said, “Try to write something to this—and if it’s good maybe we’ll record it, and if it’s not good maybe we’ll scrap it and move on.” It ended up being “Did We Live Too Fast.” So we recorded that and just sort of slowly turned it into an album over the course of a couple years. We got together every couple months and did a song, and it just kind of worked itself out.
How did you and Dan choose the name Got a Girl?
We were really just spitballing — that’s kind of how a lot of things in this project came together, us sitting in a room shouting things out. We were stuck on a name and were walking around San Francisco going into different book stores and art museums and things and trying to get inspiration. Dan said it at some point, like, “I got a girl, got a girl,” and we both just started saying it over and over agin. There’s something really snappy and catchy about it. That’s what we were looking for, something that had that kind of energy to it and just clicked. It’s the same with the album title [I Love You But I Must Drive Off This Cliff Now]. We just said it as a joke one day and we kept saying it, and kept saying it, and it just stuck.
The sound of the album and the visual components have a very ‘60s, Mad Men, Bond girl kind of feel to them. Where did that come from?
I guess we really lucked out in the sense that Dan and I have such similar sensibilities, in terms of music and film. So we really didn’t have to talk about it too much more when Dan said he was interested in exploring a kind of French-girl vibe. I was like, “I’m there,” because I love New Wave film, and I love ‘60s music, particularly French pop. So it was really easy for us to connect. It just felt really natural.
Fast Co-Create interview:
On how they began collaborating:
“I would bring a track to her, and she would work on it, and then I’d look at what she was doing and help her flesh it out a bit,” Nakamura says. “We would do that a few times, then we figured out that we were kind of good at it, so we would block out more time. We started doing one day here or one day there, and then we were like, ‘Let’s do a week here or a week there.’ We just started tearing it apart and really making it right.”
How they decided to go with a ’60s feel for the band:
“We were trying to get something that got the vibe,” he recalls. “And we were hanging out at City Lights Bookstore, looking at inspirational stuff, and everything didn’t seem right–and then I just caught something. It just popped into my head and it was like, ‘This is what we’re going to do,’ and she was like, ‘This is what we’re going to do.’ Instinctively, we go there. We disagree about stuff when we know they’re not right. We know this was right.”
Winstead name-checks ’60s European pop-culture icons like Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin when talking about the inspirations for the album.
As the title reads, new reviews for Mary’s debut album as well as her latest film Faults have come online. Click on each link to read the reviews in full.
Faults Review:
Got A Girl are actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead and producer/Deltron 3030 member Dan ‘The Automator’ Nakamura. They met while making Scott Pilgrim Vs The World (she played Ramona Flowers, he wrote the score), and bonded over their shared love of French yé-yé singers such as Serge Gainsbourg and Françoise Hardy. The result is not unlike Lana Del Rey, but with fun instead of fatalistic gloom. Nakamura’s lush arrangements are bolstered by gentle hip-hop beats and Winstead’s seductive voice is given grit by playfully sinister lyrics: “Maybe soon you’ll see the real me”, she sings on ‘Things Will Never Be The Same’. It sounds more like a threat than a promise.
The Debrief UK interviewed Mary for on her upcoming album set to hit stores this Tuesday! In the UK, it’ll be out this Monday, July 21. Check out some of the highlights below:
Can you explain who Dan is in case people aren’t familiar?
Dan has been a force in the music world for a while now. He’s a prolific hip hop producer, but has branched out to almost every genre. I knew him best projects like Gorillaz, Handsome Boy Modeling School, and Lovage. Lovage’s Music To Make Love To Your Old Lady By is one of my favorite albums.
And how would you guys describe your music?
I think we’re romantic in the Classic sense of the word. A little ye-ye girl, a little trip hop, a mix sweetness and melancholy.
What’s with the whole festish for women with three eyes in the Did We Live Too Fast video?
The whole concept came from our director, Hope Larson. As soon as she pitched it I knew it was perfect, and started talking about old Twilight Zone episodes and french new wave films as we went along. And it just came together in a perfectly odd way.
The whole 60s styling is SO gorgeous. Did you pick the looks and aesthetics yourself?
Thank you! Yes, I mostly wear clothes from my own closet for our Got a Girl endeavours. It’s fun to get to indulge in my love for everything vintage. I started veering away from it, but this has given me an excuse to dive back in and I love it.
The London Evening Standard reviewed Mary’s debut album and was met with good praise. Here’s what they had to say:
A collaboration between actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead (who you may remember from such films as Final Destination 3 and The Ring 2) and Dan “The Automator” Nakamura, Got a Girl may be a sideline for both of them but it’s a summer distraction of immense charm. Heavily influenced by 60s French pop of France Gall and Françoise Hardy, Winstead’s voice is a winsome, ethereal thing which floats over Nakamura’s lush, melodydrenched arrangements with infinite grace and a soupçon of sadness. Things Will Never Be the Same is the theme for a non-existent James Bond film, There’s a Revolution ups the tempo without breaking into anything so common as a sweat, while Winstead swears her way through the relatively punky throwaway Da Da Da with engagingly haughty attitude to spare.
4/5 stars
If you haven’t already, you can stream the whole album on HypeM and then pre-order on itunes or Amazon.
Hype Machine is streaming I Love You But I Must Drive Off This Cliff Now in full over on their website. Fluxblog confirms the album “sounds like French and Brazilian pop from the mid-20th century,” while UK blog Dots And Dashes describes a “kooky pseudo-travelogue centered around their shared penchant for the Swinging 60s, Winstead’s blase sighs complemented by the Automator’s keen ear for swoonsome yet louche retrospective soundscaping.”
Got A Girl is the musical duo featuring Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Dan the Automator. Head on over to the website (link above) to give it a listen. It’s seriously fantastic. And be sure to pre-order the album on Amazon or iTunes. I Love You will hit stores July 22.
The Digital Fix has reviewed Mary’s debut album and it’s received a great review! Below are some highlights:
First thing’s first, you don’t have to have an equal love (or even knowledge) of French pop to enjoy Got A Girl. From the seductive lead single ‘Did We Live Too Fast’ – “I’m sure she’s very lovely, but aren’t I just as nice?” – through to the delicate finale of ‘Heavenly’, the entire album captivates. A mid-album combo of the energetic sharp hook of ‘There’s A Revolution’ and the dramatic strings of ‘Things Will Never Be The Same’ is among the most invigorating sequences of music we’ve listened to this year.
As to be expected, Nakamura’s production is crisp but few might expect the vocal range and strength of Winstead. Magnetic and confident in various styles throughout, Winstead even gets the chance to bring out her mischievous punk rocker on ‘Da Da Da’, while she could be soundtracking her own romantic drama with ‘I’ll Never Hold You Back’ – “As the cold sets in / I hear your voice from within / And now you’re everywhere I turn”.
All in all, I Love You But I Must Drive Off This Cliff Now is not only one of the year’s strongest debuts, but also one of its most surprising delights. Quite how much more we’ll see of Got A Girl remains to be seen but, based on this auspicious effort, we’ll follow them wherever they go
Final score– 8/10