Original Soundtrack
Rushmore (London 556 074)

A soundtrack has to be pretty damn good before I'll buy it, and I'm pleased to say that the soundtrack to Rushmore is as fresh and welcome as the film, which was in my opinion, easily the best film of 1998, and way up there for best film of the 90s. The soundtrack is appropriately quirky, smug, warm, pretentious, and overall, very cool.

I'm not often impressed by movie music, particularly when films try to use "hidden gem" songs to bolster their emotional content, but watching "Rushmore" I was consistently surprised and pleased by the song choices, which were a bit goofy but utterly perfect for the film – and I can't say I wasn't a bit jealous of how well done the whole thing was, it's almost exactly how I would have put together the soundtrack (look at me, I'm cool tooooooo).

Eek. Anyway, the CD mixes original score cues by Mark Mothersbaugh with British Invasion pop and a bit of jazz, and it's got a surprisingly great flow to it. More filmmakers and studio executives need to realize that they needn't pack a ton of outtakes by current alternative bands onto a soundtrack when there are so many great songs out there begging to be exposed to the masses.

Like the soundtrack to The Big Lebowski, Rushmore covers atypical soundtrack territory with an eclectic mix of songs that don't sound arbitrary or random. The choicest cuts are "Concrete and Clay" by the Unit 4 + 2 (known to They Might Be Giants fans through a Dial-a-Song version by John Flansburgh) and Cat Stevens' original version of "Here Comes My Baby" (the hit version was by the Tremeloes, and is one of my all-time favorite songs; this version is from Cat's first album).

The Cat Stevens fetish is borrowed from Harold And Maude (topping my list of most desirable non-existent soundtrack albums), hence "The Wind" is included here. Other Brit-poppy moments are provided by the Kinks ("Nothing in This World Can Stop Me Worryin' 'Bout That Girl," one of those Ray Davies songs that actually makes you believe all the hype), Chad & Jeremy (the dickless, wonderful "A Summer Song"), Creation (the abrasive "Making Time"), the Faces ("Ooh La La," the slightly-too-hip-for-the-audience climactic theme from the movie), and The Who ("A Quick One While He's Away," about which I can only say I wish it were "quicker" – at almost 9 minutes it wears out its welcome "quickly").

John Lennon's "Oh Yoko" makes a brave appearance (one of John's best, by far), and then there's a bit of Zoot Sims and Yves Montand for variety. Mothersbaugh's original music is a delightful form of baroque instrumental music that sounds like what baroque music would have developed into if Wendy Carlos had used the time machine to go back and put out Switched on Bach in 1660.

This is an intelligently compiled CD that, like the film itself, deserves much more attention than it's gotten.

Loud Bassoon rating scale

Review by Honey Roasted-Peanuts