The Kids Are All Right (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

iTunes Review

Writer-director Lisa Cholodenko’s acclaimed contemporary comedy imagines the unique tensions that arise when a pair of suburban teens find their carefree sperm-donor/biological father and decide to make him part of their family-with-two-moms lives. The film’s musical song-score is a smart collage of rock stylings that effectively bridges the generations in question, spanning considerably more musical and geographic territory in the bargain. Anchored by the spacey optimism of "The Youth" by modern rock standouts MGMT and Little Dragon’s equally moody "Fortune," the collection then bobs and weaves between equally atmospheric contemporary fare and such eclectic catalog as the grit of Leon Russell’s "Out In The Woods," a pair of ‘70s Bowie tracks that underscore his own diversity ("Black Country Rock" and "Win"), X’s rollicking "The New World," Joni Mitchell’s urgent "All I Want," and even a slice of jazz guitarist Gabor Szabo’s evocative vintage fretwork. Yet it remains the restless, transnational contemporary rock of acts like Deerhoof, Brazil’s CSS, Australia’s Tame Impala, Denmark’s Quadron and Sweden’s Fever Ray that are the song-score’s compelling center of gravity.