It goes without saying that a music movie lives or dies by its music, but it's particularly true with pop music parodies. If the music doesn't hit the right notes -- if it doesn't feel like the period it's meant to evoke, if the humor is either too broad or dry -- the movie crumbles around it, to say nothing of the soundtrack, which will be hard-pressed to stand on its own as an album. The gold standard for rock comedies is This Is Spinal Tap, as the music felt authentic, and
Christopher Guest,
Harry Shearer, and
Michael McKean proved that lightning could strike twice with their folk music saga A Mighty Wind. The soundtrack to the
John C. Reilly-starring
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story belongs in such rarefied company. Like
Spinal Tap,
Walk Hard sets the bar high by attempting to create many sounds from the past, but where
the Tap pretty much confined themselves to a bit of Merseybeat and psychedelia before settling into a metallic groove, the whole point of
Walk Hard is to trace
Reilly's Cox character -- based chiefly on
Johnny Cash -- through the ins and outs of the '50s, '60s, and '70s, so there are more sounds here and thereby more pitfalls, all of which the music-makers miraculously manage to avoid. This is especially remarkable because the 15 songs on
Walk Hard evoke many different artists: there is naturally
Johnny Cash on the title track, the mariachi-flared "Guilty as Charged," and the cheerfully vulgar
Johnny and
June take-off "Let's Duet," but there are also two takes on
Elvis ("[Mama] You Got to Love Your Negro Man," "[I Hate You] Big Daddy"), three on
Dylan,
Roy Orbison on the grandly melodramatic "A Life Without You (Is No Life at All)," and the
Everly Brothers-styled "Darling," but this also leaves old-time rock & roll behind with the
Beach Boys psych-pop pastiche "Black Sheep" and, bizarrely, a disco spin on
David Bowie's "Starman." That's a lot of ground to cover, but the songs work as music while still being funny. Sometimes, the jokes are big and obvious -- the double entendres on "Let's Duet" are hardly subtle -- but sometimes the humor is a bit sly, as on "Royal Jelly," which nails
Dylan's stream-of-conscious romantic writing. Of course, that song wouldn't work if it weren't for
John C. Reilly's delivery; he mimics the particulars of
Dylan's cadence with the grace of Cate Blanchett, and his fine ear for detail is evident throughout this soundtrack, as he negotiates the twists and turns of the music with ease. Such a performance would be admirable if the songs weren't good, but since they're very fine, his singing helps turn
Walk Hard into that rarest of things: a parody album that's almost as addictive as the real deal. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine