Music supervisors Linda Cohen (who oversaw the tunes for “Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist”) and Lindsay Fellows (who has “Ray” among her credits) have admirably put together a surprisingly not-horrible soundtrack to the probably terrible forthcoming Vanessa Hudgens vehicle “Bandslam.” The film follows the adventures of the “new kid” in town who puts together a group to compete in a battle of the bands. No doubt, love, life lessons and a lot of carefully choreographed musical moments will follow. Lisa Kudrow, the goth guy from HBO’s “Hung,” and Aly Michalka are also among the cast.
Any Dads who are forced to drag their daughters to this, will at least get some good tunes thrown their way (though not necessarily a ton). Alongside the songs in the movie sung by Hudgens and Michalka, David Bowie (who was also somehow roped into appearing as himself in the film), The Velvet Underground & Nico, Nick Drake and Wilco are also featured. But it appears clearing those songs pretty much emptied the music budget, as the the majority of the remaining tracks are by largely unknown MySpace bands. Seriously, most of the these (forgettable) songs can be heard right on artists MySpace pages.
Here’s the tracklist:
1. David Bowie “Rebel Rebel”
2. I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On (Featuring Aly Michalka) “Amphetamine”
3. Shack “24 Hours”
4. Honor Society “Where Are You Now”
5. Seventeen Evergreen “Lunar One”
6. The Velvet Underground & Nico “Femme Fatale”
7. Exist “Twice Is Too Much”
8. Nick Drake “Road”
9. I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On (Featuring Aly Michalka) “Someone To Fall Back On”
10. Aly Michalka “I Want You To Want Me” *
11. Scott Porter and Glory Dogs “Pretend”
12. The Burning Hotels “Stuck In The Middle”
13. The Daze “Blizzard Woman Blues”
14. I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On (Featuring Vanessa Hudgens) “Everything I Own”
15. Wilco “What Light”
The soundtrack is in stores on August 11th and film is in the theaters three days later on August 14th. Hopefully at least some of girls who see the film will wonder about the music not sung by the stars and ask Dad on the drive home who that freaky looking old British guy was, and why Dad had to embarrass her by singing along to “Rebel Rebel.”