There are three things a soundtrack album can do for someone who
hasn’t had the opportunity to see its corresponding movie can do:
its music can make you feel like you can follow the storyline as it
unfolds in your mind, it can act as a nice collection of songs that
doesn’t allow you to follow the plot, or it can bore you to
tears.
I’ve probably got my friends at Capitol shaking now, wondering
what I’m going to say about the soundtrack to the film
Never Been Kissed (hey, look, a story about my life up to my
freshman year in college! – no, wait, forget I said that). Well,
gang, you can breathe a sigh of relief; while this disc doesn’t fit
the formula to allow one to follow the plot, it is a wonderful
collection of songs from groups that you’ve either heard of or will
be hearing a lot of soon.
If you don’t consider yourself the adventurous type when it
comes to music, you can take some comfort with the inclusion of
such established jewels as John Lennon & Yoko Ono’s “Watching
The Wheels”, The Beach Boys’s “Don’t Worry Baby” and (to a lesser
extent) The Smiths’s “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I
Want”. (I wouldn’t mind seeing a rebirth of interest in The Smiths;
maybe this inclusion will spark something.)
What is surprising is that one “established” group, R.E.M.,
fails to impress with the inclusion of the track “At My Most
Beautiful” from their
Up album. (After hearing this one, it kind of made me glad
that I lost an eBay auction for this album a few months ago.)
While I don’t want to take away from the “name” artists on
Never Been Kissed, this soundtrack really is the main stage
for some groups whose work you might nevber have heard before.
Okay, maybe Semisonic and The Cardigans don’t belong under this
label (with the inclusion of their songs “Never You Mind” and
“Erase/Rewind”, respectively), but these particular selections
rock. The first time you hear artists like Remy Zero (“Problem”),
Jimmy Eat World (“Lucky Denver Mint”), The Moffatts (“Until You
Loved Me”) and Kendall Payne (“Closer To Myself”), chances are
you’ll be asking out loud, “Who are these people, and why haven’t I
heard them before?”
Also making an appearance is Block, with a different version of
“Catch A Falling Star” than the version I remember off his debut
album
Timing Is Everything. If this is indeed a different version
of the track, I’m sorry, but I liked the bizarre original mix
better.
Despite one or two small missteps (nothing unusual for a
soundtrack – hey, it’s hard to cover all the bases to please
everyone),
Never Been Kissed is a pleasant listen that is sure to bring
a smile to anyone’s face. If, minimally, you gain pleasure from
just this disc, so be it. But something tells me that once you hear
some of the artists on this disc, you’re going to want to hear more
of them.
