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It's pretty amazing that "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" even exists, much less that it anchors a fledgling network, reaps critical hosannas and enjoy a massive fan base. Based on a mediocre teen movie, it's enormously over-appreciated. Absurdly self-conscious, the show constantly stumbles over its own winks, especially any time it uses special effects. And the details are maddening. The girl who's supposed to be the nerd is incredibly cute, the boys are either tortured complexity or walking hormones -- and the star, her pouty lips and beach-girl 'do are about as commanding as cold milk. Sarah Michelle Gellar would be nothing without the teenspeak the show's writers put into her mouth.

At best, it's decent TV. And as a decent TV show, it's got a decent soundtrack. For starters, it comes from TVT, which is a pretty weird little label still independent in these days of media consolidation. That's another way of saying that the collection, which features songs by little guys like Guided by Voices and Rasputina, as well as tracks by alt biggies like Garbage and Black Lab, is not quite the sound of synergy that most teen pics have.

The Guided by Voices cut, "Teenage FBI," comes pretty close to the experience of the show. There's a little drive (the guitars), a bit of cheesiness (the keyboards) and some disconnect (an aging, unrepentant pop writer with a reputation for drinking too much singing a song about being in the "teenage F.B.I" -- on a television show about werewolves and vampires).

The rest of the tracks can be pretty much split down the middle. There are those that, at a stretch, have something to do with the "Buffy" theme, like Face to Face's "The Devil You Know (God Is a Man)," or Garbage's "Temptation Waits," which has a line that goes, "I'll tell you something/I am a demon." And then there are songs that are background for love scenes on the show, like the Sundays' limp version of the Rolling Stones chestnut "Wild Horses" and bluegrass phenom Alison Krauss & Union Station's pretty "It Doesn't Matter."

"Go Simpsonic With 'The Simpsons'"
Rhino

In the past couple of years, there's been a resurgence of "Simpsons" merchandise, which from the creators' perspective is probably a good thing considering that "Futurama" action figures probably won't be adding much to the Matt Groening empire's coffers. Back in the early day, you could buy "Simpsons" hair barrettes, bubble bath and smushy yellow dolls. The T-shirts were so hot that bootleggers nicked the designs.

Now, "Simpsons" products are made for the more-than-casual fan: books, videotapes and two CDs of music from the show. The new "Go Simpsonic with 'The Simpsons'" is certainly a fan's affair, the second CD of songs and dialog snippets that originally appeared on the show.

With 53 tracks, the disc takes some active listening. You can't put it on and settle in on the couch with a magazine. It's good for three things: answering machines bits, mix-tape segues and remembering some of the best moments of the show. And that's not a bad thing. "The Simpsons" uses music differently from every other program on television, which is part of what makes the show unlike any other.

Alf Clausen's songs and scores, to say nothing of Danny Elfman's bombastic theme, are something special. To start with, they're extraordinarily witty. Listen to the Philip Glass version of the theme song for about as highbrow a joke as ever ends up on TV. Further, Clausen's songs do everything that classic musical numbers do. They're a lapse into the surreal and unreal, sort of a meta-commentary on the straight action, which makes them even more bizarre considering that their root is an animated show somewhat free of physics where all the characters have four fingers.

The songs are exquisite parodies and satires and, at the same time, Broadway tributes -- like the "Canyonero" television commercial, a poke at suburban recreational vehicles, or the "Cape Feare" medley, which includes Sideshow Bob ("Frasier's" Kelsey Grammer) singing "H.M.S. Pinafore." It goes without saying that they're catchy as hell.

The majority of the great songs -- Tito Puentes' "Seçor Burns," the "Planet of the Apes" musical, the Stonecutters theme -- ended up on the first disc. But the second has a few jewels, including the Mary Poppins spoof, "Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(annoyed grunt)cious," the "Candy Medley," which parodies Bow Wow Wow's "I Want Candy" and Devo's "Whip It," and "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase," a musical number that invents theme songs for fake TV shows. It's also loaded with what's become a "Simspons" staple: guest stars. The Ramones offer a tribute to Mr. Burns, Sonic Youth detunes the theme song, Linda Ronstadt sings a commercial for Homer's snow-removal nemesis, "Plow King," and Hank Williams Jr. does "Canyonero." (For some reason, Yo La Tengo's psychedelic take on the theme is MIA.)

"'Friends' Again"
Reprise

"Friends" is one of most successful shows on television. That level of success means that the producers can pretty much can write their own ticket for music. To some degree, the show has made a semi-interesting decision. In general, instead of plucking hits off the radio or catalog songs that would give the show a sort of cool-by-association, it picks some smaller artists or off songs and sort of confers cool. It's a huge favor: The first "Friends" soundtrack CD sold something like 2 million copies and, of course, made stars of the L.A. pop band the Rembrandts for a heady few months.

The problem is that while "Friends" may know how to tell a joke, it's never been very cool. Like the first soundtrack installment, the second is as perky as the physical attributes of some of its stars.

Minneapolis' Semisonic delivers a fun live version of their own "Delicious." "Angel and the Jerk" is a pretty rare song collaboration between old punk rock (the Avengers' Penelope Houston) and new (Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong) and sounds like exactly what you'd think: slashing guitar, hook-driven and vocally buoyant. Those are the high points.

There are a lot of low points, starting with the dialog that runs across the disc. When I put on a CD, I more or less want to listen to music: not some battle-of-the-sexes joke that gets less and less funny each time I hear it. But maybe that's just me.

There's nothing funnier than bad music, which may be why the performance of "Smelly Cat," Phoebe's crappy acoustic novelty tune, is considered a classic moment in "Friends" lore. But bad music, like that dialog, also has a way of getting less and less funny. Here, sung with the Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde, "Smelly Cat" gets pounded into the ground with a false start, an acoustic version and a rocked-out electric version.

But that's only one kind of bad music on the soundtrack. Variations include Lisa Loeb's blow-away "Summer," Robbie Williams' slaughter of Pet Shop Boys' "I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind of Thing" and Deckard's "What Reason," which sounds like a Bush cover.

In a final bout of irony, the CD ends with a rap version, by a group called Thor-El, of that Rembrandts hit "I'll Be There for You." It's hard to say what's more cheesier: Thor-El's cheap, silly electronic beat, or the fact that the whitest show on television closes a lily-white soundtrack with a token rap song so clueless that it pretty much mocks itself.
salon.com | Dec. 9, 1999

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