Various Artists
Spider-Man: Music from and Inspired By
(Columbia/Roadrunner/Island Def Jam/Sony Music Soundtrax)

Let me first say that I am a sucker for the variety that movie soundtracks
provide. I purchased the Escape from LA. soundtrack the day after I saw
the film, because I was into the adrenaline rush of the driving techno and thought
it would be good for parties. Yeah It wasn’t. Second–and this is pathetic–I
actually like a lot of those hard alt-rock songs played on KNRK and KUFO. Staind,
Nickelback, System of a Down, whatever that new Tool rip-off band is. I do not
change the station during those songs, and, when I’m by myself, I passionately
sing along.

Okay, so for a big-budget film like Spider-Man, you’d think they could’ve gotten all kinds of big names to sell out and generate some decent music–but alas, not too many. I suppose they thought, “Why bother paying big bucks when you can get a bunch of bands that blatantly pirate the innovations of earlier groups, and cost a lot less?” Sum 41 wants to be the Beastie Boys, Theory of a Dead Man robs Alice in Chain’s “Dam that River” riff (not even one of their good songs). Default is a clone of Silverchair, and the only reason Silverchair was vaguely tolerable is because the boys were 17.

Surprise sell-outs, however, are Macy Gray (bad speak-sing song with metal guitar), and Jerry Cantrell (continuing in the Alice in Chains vein), and not surprising sell-outs are the crappy, boring Strokes, Alien Ant Farm (someone kill them), and Aerosmith, who play a super-heavy version of the Spider-Man theme song, and seems to be willing to go to any lengths to continue torturing the masses. To think that I was embarrassed to purchase the soundtrack at the midnight madness sale–I can’t even believe how Aerosmith must be feeling. The prevailing sentiment is hard, overproduced guitar, and faux tortured vocals, like, “Goddamn my life is so hard, because I’m such a giant chump.”

The few good songs, however, were The Hives’ spacey, distorted pop-punk and the opening and closing compositions by Danny Elfman–a composer for dozens of films (Planet of the Apes, Sleepy Hollow) and television shows, so of course, he’s one of the few who knows what he’s doing. See the film; don’t buy the soundtrack unless you’re a 13-year-old boy.