Various Artists Album Recommendations: "Kids"

Album Recommendations: Kids

The old five-point scale has been retired in favor of just rating stuff 1-10, which allows me a much more nuanced final rating. Still don't take it that seriously. Most of these come from my own collection, so the grades skew rather high. Your results may vary if you send me stuff to review.

Each album is given three Essential tracks, my personal favorites, regardless of how weird and inconsequential they are. The Quintessential pick is the one I think best represents the album as a whole, so you can try one song instead of a whole album of songs. Non-Essential picks range from merely disappointing to outright unlistenable.

Various Artists

[#] Kids (1995)

Creaky sounds for a rather notorious movie.

Reviewed June 28, 2023

How strange to have your big album be a soundtrack. What a strange soundtrack this is! Kids as a movie is, well, I haven't seen it, but given that the tale of a bunch of teenagers giving each other HIV was funded by none other than Harvey Weinstein (I'm not kidding, look it up), I'm fairly certain it's aged poorly. Kids as a soundtrack is neither fish nor fowl—it's one part the Folk Implosion's score and one part indie rock and 90s east coast rap, only two tracks of which appear in the actual film—and you don't need to know anything about the movie to enjoy it. Thankfully.

Sad analog synth cries, drum loops, and melting bass lines make up the score here, lots of cool, eerie sounds, even occasionally catchy! The few licensed tracks come from indie heroes Daniel Johnston and Slint (the agonized screaming at the end of "Good Morning Captain" is forever harrowing)—none of the rap music from the film appears, though Lo-Down's grim "Mad Fright Night" is a very worthy substitute. Oh, yeah, and there's that "Natural One" song. I like that one. It's ephemeral and of its time, but it's a nice mood piece if you like your indie rock creepy—and it's at least a million times more enjoyable than watching a twelve-year-old getting rough-fucked, you'll be surprised to hear.