Various – SubUrbia: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Good 90s film. Good poster art. Anyone who went to the video store religiously in the 90s and rented independent films most likely saw this film. It is still aired on TV sometimes. Viceland recently aired it. Empire Records and That Thing You Do! are two more music movies that came out in the 1990s that were big in their time and are worth watching. Empire Records is about a record store and That Thing You Do! is about a 1960s garage band.

SONIC YOUTH IS all over this soundtrack (three tracks, plus one off of Thurston Moore's solo album) of the film based on Eric Bogosian's play. "Bebe's Song" and "Sunday" are two of the cooler tracks SY have ever done -- this version of "Sunday" predates its eventual appearance on their most recent effort, A Thousand Leaves. It's got everything you'd expect -- pulsing rhythms, Thurston's mild vocals, and a chaotic, dissonant instrumental bridge in the middle. But as good as the SY tracks are, the contributions from other artists are just as solid.

Pavement's Stephen Malkmus hooks up with Elastica on a rollicking cover of X's "The Unheard Music." While Justine Frischmann is effective as an Exene surrogate, the rest of her band proves capable of little more than competent chording. Meanwhile, Malkmus steals the show with his guitar flights of fancy, being distinctive while admirably refraining from copying the very distinctive phrase Billy Zoom added to the end of each line of verse in the original. And as always, Malkmus the vocalizer is front and center, replacing the weariness of the original with absolute exuberance -- especially when he yelps "...on the car radi-o-o-o!" A keeper -- everything a cover tune should be.

Other highlights include: the throbbing decadence of Girls Against Boys; Boss Hog doing a bizarre cover of the Kinks' "I'm Not Like Everybody Else" (bouncy, organ-fueled new wave in the verses, riot grrrl punk in the choruses); Beck (typically) throwing us for a loop, playing a shambling acoustic country tune ("Feather In Your Cap") in the midst of this otherwise-very-eclectic album; and Superchunk contributing a new song ("Does Your Hometown Care?") which neatly fits the theme of the film while offering the bounciest pop I've ever heard from them.

And lastly, amidst all this indie rock, this album's compilers had the wisdom to include Gene Pitney's swinging, early 60's "A Town Without Pity." The song plays during the film's opening credits, as the camera pans across scenes of the soulless, anonymous suburban town in which the film takes place. The odd juxtaposition of this torchy song with images of drab, beige suburbia is unsettling, providing an excellent intro to this unsettling film.