From the Jul 6 – Jul 12, 2000 issue

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What's the Score?

Hollywood Soundtracks and the Kitchen Sink

by Kathleen Wilson

The poor woman. She never gives up, despite my not having once taken her call. She's a publicist at CineMedia, a company which specializes in promoting soundtracks, and for all she knows, I have been away from my desk for the past three years.

Though they are an integral part of any film, to a music editor, soundtracks are a pain in the ass. You try to review them like a regular CD, but you can't, because, well, you just can't. There's no real context to do any kind of criticism--unless it's the soundtrack to Magnolia, and then it's just a bunch of songs slapped together that have no relation to each other, let alone the film they're in.

Soundtracks used to be great, all full of meaning and memories, and then the birth of Mainstream Alternative Rock ruined it all. Now soundtracks rarely serve as anything more than a crazy scam to get you to listen to Mainstream Alternative Radio and buy Mainstream Alternative Records. Former MTV-jay Allison Stewart, whom I imagine is never away from her desk, grasps this ploy and rewards it with one very ridiculous review for CDNOW.com: "Road Trip is a marvel of cross-generational genre-hopping in which there is truly something for everyone." She praises the soundtrack for its inclusion of songs by Ween, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and Buckcherry (for crying out loud), saying those are for the "Gen Xers," while Eels and Supergrass will please the latecoming "Gen Yers." My! That's truly a marvel of cross-generational genre-hopping. And a marvel of horseshit.

Check out the alternative charts and the track listings on the soundtrack of American Pie--they read pretty much the same. Third Eye Blind, Blink 182, Sugar Ray, Goldfinger. And don't forget the trailer music, which never shows up on the soundtrack because the song wasn't even out when the film was being made. Remember the trailer for the hormonally charged Disturbing Behavior, which featured the then-chart-rising Harvey Danger single "Flagpole Sitta"? It wasn't on the soundtrack, but the song sold the movie just the same.

The music-incorporated M: I-2 left me with no impression after the movie was finished, but because Metallica wrote a song specifically for it, there's been a lot of bluster about the soundtrack. A look at the track listings shows the disc to be quite chaotic, obviously trying to appeal to everyone at once. But how can that be done? Remember the first Crow soundtrack? Jane Siberry right there in the middle of Helmet and Stone Temple Pilots. Wim Wenders does that kind of crap all the time, and all it's good for is exercising your index finger on the track skip button. Another CDNOW.com scribe tries to make this genre-hopping out to be a good thing: "In spite of the album's split personalities, M: I-2 offers enough quality songs to appeal to an array of music fans. And here's hoping that the different music audiences give the whole album a chance and don't just go for their favorite bands, because [they'd] be missing out." Basically, who needs K-Tel anymore? Every blockbuster soundtrack is just a newer version of Power Explosion.

Recently I was taken aback by a sequence in The Virgin Suicides, where the housebound sisters communicate to the neighborhood boys via records. Not a word is said as the teens hold an intimate conversation through the Hollies', Al Green, and Gilbert O'Sullivan. It's a beautiful, scene and it made me ache with nostalgia. But why in the world would I go out and buy the blasted soundtrack? Todd Rundgren's "Hello It's Me" followed by Sloan and Air before the Hollies' "The Air That I Breathe" just kind of ruins the flow for me.

So quit calling me, CineMedia. It isn't going to happen.

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