On the opposite end of the spectrum is Rushmore: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (London) -- as oddly charming a piece of work as the film's 15-year-old protagonist, Max Fischer. Eschewing current MTV-driven soundtrack convention as thoroughly as the film avoids Hollywood formulas, the album is nonetheless far more straightforward conceptually than Hedwig. Its ten not-so-obvious mid-sixties pop and folk-rock songs -- by the likes of the Kinks, Cat Stevens, and the Faces -- are basically classic rock that hasn't been played to the point of numbing familiarity on nostalgia radio. A couple of older jazz numbers, along with Mark Mothersbaugh's engagingly offbeat score, add to the album's mood of haunted sweetness. In the liner notes, director Wes Anderson writes that he'd originally planned to score the film with nothing but music by the Kinks, because they "played loud, angry teenage rock songs, and they wore blazers and ties" -- just like the film's young hero. Dressed up like that, Max looks like the anti-Hedwig. But the screwy outsider beauty of his theme music makes it seem just possible that he and the Teutonic drag queen might actually be kindred spirits.

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• Archive: “Music Review”
• Articles by Ethan Smith
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