OK, Paris, pass Scarlett the mike

APPARENTLY following the lead of Us Weekly ingenues-turned-pop sensations Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, Scarlett Johansson has signed a recording deal with recently reactivated Atco Records and is laying down tracks for a debut album.

Unlike her Young Hot Hollywood confreres, however, the dusky-timbred, 21-year-old Johansson hasn’t set her sights on generation “TRL” -- or necessarily even the widest possible listenership. At least, that much became clear when Meat Loaf admitted last month that the actress had rebuffed his invitation to perform on his “Bat Out of Hell III” CD.

The same precocious gravitas Johansson brings to her movie roles (as well as her coquettish rendition of the Pretenders’ “Brass in Pocket” in “Lost in Translation”) seems to inform her musical selections -- like her cover of “Summertime” on “Unexpected Dreams: Songs From the Stars,” a benefit album that came out in April.

Johansson’s initial pop offering tackles the songbook of alternative music’s grizzled elder statesman, a guy who sounds as though he gargles with broken glass. The reported title: “Scarlett Sings Tom Waits.” (A label spokeswoman confirms that the album, which will surface as soon as Johansson’s jampacked movie schedule allows her to finish it, will consist of Waits covers, but said its title is yet to be decided.)

EMusic, IFC get behind the indie

IT was a partnership just waiting to happen: the integration of independent music with independent film. At least that’s what executives at the online music retailer EMusic.com and the Independent Film Channel were thinking when they combined forces to create “EMusic Dozens: The IFC Soundtrack,” a 10-minute show that began appearing on the cable channel and streaming on the Web (at www.emusic.com/IFC and YouTube) last week.

EMusic editors handpicked the 12 artists profiled on the show -- up-and-coming acts such as the Hold Steady, Kaki King and RJD2 -- as well as established indie artists with some mainstream crossover, including Bjork, Spoon and Isaac Hayes. And short video segments integrating video montage, concert footage, interviews and animation about each act were commissioned in an effort to take fans “behind the music.”

Shinoda shows spirit of giving

Linkin Park/Fort Minor vocalist-producer Mike Shinoda’s debut art exhibition and sale, “Diamonds Spades Hearts Clubs,” goes up Nov. 19 at Gallery 1988 in Hollywood and will include paintings inspired by graffiti, traditional Japanese iconography and toy culture.

The show, a benefit for Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design, where Shinoda earned his bachelor’s degree, includes Fort Minor album art and original pieces he’s done solo as well as in collaboration with other artists.

“I love these pieces so much I’m almost having a hard time letting go of them,” Shinoda says. Proceeds will fund the college’s Michael K. Shinoda Endowed Scholarship.