While a soundtrack LP based on the smorgasbord of the "sounds of the '60s" is hardly a novel concept, Rushmore announced right up front it was offering more fruitful fare by emphasizing the little-known but cranking/smoking
Creation single "Makin' Time" in its TV ads. That snarling-ornery classic more or less leads off this collection of British Invasion-era obscuros, a CD whose mere track selection proves its curator to be a genuine, happy, knowledgeable fan of the genre. Like the zany, hip radio station you've always longed for and will never get, in Rushmore's world
the Kinks' 1964 unplugged
Kinda Kinks gem "Nothing in This World Can Stop Me Worrying About That Girl" can peacefully coexist with the happy lounge of Unit 4+2, and French crooner
Yves Montand, or with
Mark Mothersbaugh of
Devo's instrumental curiosities. The young, jauntier
Cat Stevens and
Chad & Jeremy provide pep, and a live version of
the Who's first mini rock opera, the title track of their 1966 second LP,
A Quick One, locks neatly into a film where two so-different males compete for the same woman. OK, the collection isn't timeless. There aren't enough great songs here, and compiler
Wes Anderson could have done better for the great-but-in-decline
John Lennon and the also-past-their-prime
Faces than the pleasant but pathetic-indulgent "Oh Yoko!" and nice but pedestrian "Ooh La La". But even here,
Anderson errs on the side of the whimsical and unusual, precisely the qualities missing in the movies these days. In the end, it's his sense of fun that pervades this unpredictable assortment as much as it does the cinematic experience. Synchronicity at last! ~ Jack Rabid. The Big Takeover