Kids
"Kids Motion Picture Soundtrack" CD (PolyGram)
All you need to know is that Lou Barlow and John Davis composed the music for much of this soundtrack to be convinced that a quality product lies only a play button away. Not having seen the film myself, I'm not sure what the movie producers had in mind for a musical effect, but the songs create a foreboding tone of destitution, conjuring images of overcast skies, smog-billowing industrial smokestacks and the concrete jungles of metropolitan America. I find the lighter cuts by Daniel Johnston akin to the odious sound of fingernails across a chalkboard, but the album's amalgam of Johnston, Folk Implosion, Sebadoh, Lo-Down and Slint easily carry the weight required of a motion picture while more than satiating the desires of the ears. The curious thing here is that Barlow, Mr. Anti-Hit Single, has created himself a niche in the commercial radio market with Folk Implosion's cut, "Natural One," a song sure to turn the kiddies at the java joints agog at how great this new band is (ha ha). Don't get me wrong. Barlow's guitar music of Sebadoh and more electronically inclined Folk Implosion is solid on this album, but my biggest beef is that he's been creating this stuff for years without such recognition, which brings us to a perennial crossroads. Do we really want our indie rockers to be lavished with the public recognition for quality music that they deserve? (ALEX)