The Soundtrack Of Our Lives

Each month we will look at a music soundtrack that aspires to be as great as the movie that birthed it (and a lot of times, even better). This time around though we are looking at one that has some of my least favorite songs ever, and one of the best - Lords of Dogtown.

Inspired by the pretty awesome skateboard movie, this soundtrack is actually kind of crap. Almost the entire album is an homage to the worst cock-rock that the 1970's spawned. The Lords of Dogtown Soundtrack is polluted with everything from Foghat to bow-hunting extraordinaire Ted "The Nuge" Nuget. There are tracks from Nazareth, Joe Walsh and the most beer commercial inspired T-Rex song of all time "20th Century Boy." So what gives? Why even talk about this album? Well there's a gem here and there - David Bowie's, "Suffregragette City," is always a welcome addition, as well as the only great song (or bearable song) that Rod Stewart ever wrote, "Maggie May." But then, stuffed at the very end of the album, inexplicably, is a Sparklehorse/Thom Yorke (of Radiohead) collaboration - doing a cover of Pink Floyd's, "Wish You Were Here."

It comes out of absolutely nowhere. It's hard to imagine the person putting this thing together, with their stacks of crap by Ted Nugent and Deep Purple, thinking, "You know, what would really tie this whole thing together is a Radiohead/Sparklehorse collaboration." And yet. Following Rod Stewart's Cougartown fantasy "Maggie May," is a subtle, beautiful rendition of the only really good song Pink Floyd wrote (I'm already anticipating the hate mail from saying that) covered by no less a person than Thom Yorke with Mark Linkous (who is actually responsible for 95% of the song). Incredible. I have no idea why this happened, I'm just glad it did.

You can hear the song below.