Music from Vanilla Sky\nVarious Artists\nReprise Records\nI don't know Cameron Crowe. Therefore it's hard for me to say a whole lot about him, but I do know that the man sure does know how to direct a movie, and additionally, he knows how to pick songs to assemble one hell of a soundtrack for these movies. Recent examples, such as "Jerry Maguire" and "Almost Famous," simply stand as examples to prove my point. You can add "Vanilla Sky" to this list.\nThe movie itself is a crazy mind-bender, and the soundtrack is chock full of songs that are found in the movie and that add ambiance to the story. The roster of artists on the soundtrack is practically a who's who of quality musicians. Included are REM, Radiohead, Jeff Buckley and Bob Dylan, just to name a few. \nSome of the more notable pieces of music on the album are both REM tracks, "All the Right Friends" and "Sweetness Follows," Buckley's "Last Goodbye" and Peter Gabriel's "Solbsbury Hill." The beauty of the two REM songs is that each is different in pace and feel, one is upbeat while the other is more melancholy, yet both are quality pieces of music and provide examples of to why they are one of the better bands of our time. Dylan's entry, "Fourth Time Around," starts off with his signature harmonica to the point where any listener could pick out the song after only a couple of notes without knowing what number it is. Yet that is the beauty of Dylan, he knows what works and keeps making it work, time after time after time.\nOf course, there are a few songs on this album that leave a little to be desired. All of these songs have a place in the movie so they make sense, yet on this soundtrack they just seem a little out of place. "Mondo '77" by Looper, "Afrika Shox" by Leftfield and Afrika Bambaataa and "Svefn-g-englar" by Sigur Ros all just seem like songs that would be better found on a different album than this. \nAlso, in terms of poor songs, the "Porpoise Song" by The Monkees just seems to be a bad unused track from the Beatles Sgt. Pepper sessions. I wonder why these guys were never able to shake the reputation as a bad Beatles rip-off?\nAll in all, this soundtrack is quality and is a good purchase. From start to finish, you will find yourself only wanting to pass up maybe one or two songs, and by the time it's done you'll want to start it all over again. When an album can do that, you get your money's worth.\n
