Color Me Impressed

More and more I'm hearing cool underappreciated music in advertising and film soundtracks. When discussing with friends, they think it's cool and wonder why it's happening now and not before. I know why. Media planners and creative types in advertising are in their late twenties/early thirties (like me). We grew up in a time when 'punk broke' as Sonic Youth said. That's just another way of saying that the alternative became the mainstream in my generation.

So it follows that people from my generation who work in advertising are taking advantage of their situation to put good underappreciated music front and center for the masses.

Back in the '90s, Cameron Crowe took advantage of his situation to bring us the first solo material from the Replacements' Paul Westerberg. The "Singles" soundtrack featured "Dyslexic Heart" and "Waiting For Somebody," the first two new solo songs after The Replacements broke up. It was a big deal for a lot of us.

Somewhere out there someone got the idea to have Westerberg write and perform music for the new animated film "Open Season." I really don't get it, the idea is odd, having his music as part of this film. It's a kids movie, for chrissakes. It's the same thing happening all over again. A Paul Westerberg fan took advantage of their situation to try and push this amazing music on the mainstream.

I haven't seen the movie, so I have no idea how well it works, but we get eight new Westerberg recordings. Plus there are two songs from Deathray and one from Pete Yorn, all three written by Paul. So that's eleven new Westerberg songs, plus the Talking Heads song "Wild Wild Life." I guess they had to throw in that one to round out the soundtrack's original purpose. The Deathray and Pete Yorn tracks were probably added to make the record more palatable and/or marketable to the masses.

Good. Because these are some of the easiest to digest songs the man has recorded in thirteen years. But that doesn't mean this stuff's watered down. Plus, and this one's a seriously big plus, Tommy Stinson (bass player from the Replacements) plays on two tracks.

If you're a Westerberg or Replacements fan, you should pick this one up. And don't be concerned about it being a kids' movie soundtrack, that's irrelevant here.