Album Review: Magnolia Soundtrack

MUSIC

Soundtrack

Magnolia

Reprise

Rarely does a movie soundtrack focus on a single artist. Simon and Garfunkel's work on The Graduate is one of the few that come to mind. Former Bostonian Aimee Mann takes on the task with nine tracks for Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia. Why Aimee Mann? According to his liner notes, Anderson, a friend of Mann, felt that she "is the great articulator of the biggest things we think about." On the Magnolia soundtrack, Mann's songwriting cuts to the core of human emotion, exploring the intricacies of love and pain with a catchy quality that locks the songs in your head and makes you want to listen to the album again and again.

Soundtrack

Magnolia

Reprise

The album's haunting first single, "Save Me," ponders emotional rescue, with Mann begging to be liberated from "the ranks of the freaks who suspect they can never love anyone." Mann's folk-pop provides an appropriate backdrop for her deep, probing lyrics. The soundtrack also contains two gems from Supertramp, a flashback to the early '90s with Gabrielle's "Dreams," and the movie's instrumental theme by Jon Brion. But, in the end, it is Mann's work that carries this disc to greatness. Anderson's movie has quite a task in living up to the expectations created by this masterful soundtrack. A -- ANDREW P. NIKONCHUK