V/A – Music From The Motion Picture Monster-In-Law / 2005 New Line / 13 Tracks / http://www.newlinerecords.com / Reviewed 24 May 2005

This is my first OST that I’ve had the chance to review for the ‘zine. This is the incidental music for the Jennifer Lopez-driven film Monster-in-Law, and tracks on it include Jem, Esthero, Tegan and Sara, and Dar Williams, in what is also one of the first female-led CDs I’ve reviewed. What is really noticeable in just the first few tracks of this soundtrack is the synchronicity enjoyed by the differing artist. The compiler of this disc had really went through all of the various discs and other medias to find these thirteen cuts, as the vast majority of the tracks here follow a laid-back, semi-sultry vocal-dominated style.

The first derivation from this formula (and it may not even be a derivation as much as it is a recast of the general sound) on this disc occurs on “Everyday Is A Holiday (With You) by Esthero. The track looks back to the sixties even as the sultry vocals present on the track firmly plant the vocalist in the current period. Continuing the move away from the mood created in the first tracks of the disc, Nellie McKay completely turns the blues form on its head with “Won’t U Please B Nice”, a track that spins hyper-violence into a comedic artform. Rachael Yamagata’s “1963” really is a step back from the innovative and at times earth-shaking relevance of the tracks on this soundtrack; saddled with a perfectly average backing set of instruments, it is not that Yamagata fails the track as much as ey just underwhelms eir audience.

The electronic, eighties-influenced style of Astaire’s “L-L-Love” is the perfect fix for this momentary lapse in the quality of the disc; we are treated to a perfectly danceable section of this CD as the track moves to Tegan and Sara’s hit “Walking With A Ghost”. Even the Ivy track “Thinking About You” has moved beyond the ultimately weak “In The Clear” with their fitting contribution. The two very different tracks that this OST follows in its thirteen tracks may seem to some to be working at cross-purposes, but the disc really feels evolutionary instead of detatched. Any disc in which Joss Stone actually sounds good has to have a little magic to it, and the equal production that the tracks have amongst each other really bring Stone’s typically loud and melodramatic voice into a reasonably loud comparison with the rest of the disc.

Top Tracks: Walking With A Ghost / Tegan and Sara and The Beauty of the Rain / Dar Williams

Rating: 6.7/10