Gallantly Streaming: Dave Grohl Does His Part To Bring Soundtracks Back

It's been a long time since soundtracks have been relevant, hasn't it? Back in the mid 80's and early 90's, the soundtrack was king, and not just for rock music; hell, one of the biggest selling albums of all time is the soundtrack for The Bodyguard because of that God-awful Whitney Houston song.

Now, with the movie industry crying about their lost money and the average music consumer just going for singles anyway, the soundtrack no longer seems a viable option for studios. Sure, they still exist, but only in the way pickles still exist on fast food cheeseburgers (some will enjoy them, many don't want anything to do with them).

Sound City: Real To Reel, however, is no pickle. The love child of Dave Grohl and friends, this soundtrack is the result of the movie rather than a simple batch of songs thrown together because they sound good in the background for this scene or that and the movie studio had enough scratch under the couch cushions for licensing fees. As such, it's a glorious payoff to a glorious movie (seriously, if you haven't watched Sound City yet, it's a must). Enough out of me, let's do this (with thanks to NPR):

For those who don't know who's singing what, here's the tracklist with who's hanging out on the track:
1. Heaven And All (Robert Levon Been and Peter Hayes of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club with Dave Grohl)
2. Time Slowing Down (Chris Goss and Dave Grohl with Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk of Rage Against The Machine)
3. You Can't Fix This (Stevie Nicks with Dave Grohl, Taylor Hawkins and Rami Jaffee)
4. The Man That Never Was (Rick Springfield with Dave Grohl, Taylor Hawkins, Nate Mendel and Pat Smear)
5. Your Wife Is Calling (Lee Ving of Fear with Dave Grohl, Taylor Hawkins, Pat Smear and Alain Johannes)
6. From Can To Can't (Corey Taylor of Stone Sour/Slipknot with Rick Nielsen and Scott Reeder of Cheap Trick, and Dave Grohl)
7. Centipede (Joshua Homme of Queens Of The Stone Age with Dave Grohl, Alain Johannes and Chris Goss)
8. A Trick With No Sleeve (Alain Johannes with Dave Grohl and Joshua Homme)
9. Cut Me Some Slack (Paul McCartney with Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear)
10. If I Were Me (Dave Grohl, with Jessy Greene, Jim Keltner and Rami Jaffee)
11. Mantra (Dave Grohl with Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails/How To Destroy Angels and Joshua Homme)

If you've been following the project and/or have seen the movie, you've heard most of this before. What you didn't get a good listen to in the flick was Centipede, a towering, Zeppelin-scale behemoth with Joshua Homme in the driver's seat. It's a frontrunner for album highlight on an album that's full of impressive rock pedigree. You also haven't got a good listen to If I Were Me, where Grohl takes over mic duties himself and hands the sticks to legendary studio drummer Jim Keltner. It's a tender and harrowing track that yields all the more power toward the back end of this rock fest.

Also thrilling is Mantra, featuring Grohl, Homme, and Trent Reznor. The film gave us a decent sample size of this one, but on disc it builds and disintegrates for nearly eight minutes, as the trio lock into a zone and ride it to the stratos before a spectacular crash landing into Groove Valley. Oh, and if you saw it in the movie and assumed it was instrumental, so sorry; all three sing on the damn thing too. It's a glorious track, and a hell of a closer.

It might not revive soundtracks for everyone, but Sound City: Real To Reel is a fine album in its own right, and the best soundtrack I've heard since, say, Natural Born Killers. Is that how long it's been since soundtracks mattered? Hmm, this might warrant further investigation.

Sound City: Real To Reel is out next week through RCA.

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SOUND BITES

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