VARIOUS ARTISTS - WICKER PARK SOUNDTRACK

Movie soundtracks are tricky. Soundtracks should be a great mix CD that\'s worth your $15 and in some way goes along with the movie it\'s promoting. That last part gets me. I have trouble plopping down hard-earned cash for what amounts to a movie commercial. This movie, Wicker Park, looks to me like a turd from the trailer.
Writing reviews of soundtracks is tricky, too, because it’s not like you can write about the overall talent or sound of one particular artist. You typically have this array of unknown up-and-comers (like Snow Patrol, who offer us a horrendous song called \"How To Be Dead\") or semi-big acts looking to cash in via a veil of being \"inspired\" by the film (take, for instance, Lifehouse\'s boring song \"Everybody Is Somebody\") or pointless remakes (Mates Of State\'s god-awful cover of Nico\'s beautiful song \"These Days\").
Soundtracks used to be just that: the actual music for the movie. Now they’re usually a seemingly random selection of pop songs. That’s the category Wicker Park’s soundtrack falls into for me. From the dreadful trailer it looks like some sort of mistaken identity or obsessive person thriller. This soundtrack makes it seem like a really moody John Hughes film. I won’t see the movie, so I’ll never know which is correct. But as a promotional tool, this soundtrack is a bore.