Various Artists -Watchmen [soundtrack]

Sun 22nd Mar, 2009 in Music Reviews

The Watchmen graphic novel has long been considered the Citizen Kane of the superhero genre, so it’s understandable that the movie made fans nervous. Directed by Zack Snyder of 300 fame and with no input from creator Alan Moore, the film maintains the brutality, nihilism and overall darkness of the novel, while simplifying it just enough for a mass audience to get somewhere near comprehension.

But the film will always live in the shadow of the book. As a result, so does the soundtrack. Moore ended chapters of his opus with quotes from songs (mainly by Bob Dylan ), and essentially all these tracks appear on the soundtrack.

But there is something unusual about Snyder’s soundtrack – it’s engulfed by an overwhelming number of overplayed, obvious tracks. While they’re all phenomenal songs ( Sounds of Silence, Hallelujah ), they’ve become staples of Hollywood scenes to the point of boredom. I mean, as great as the film’s opening montage is, did we really need The Times They Are A-Changing ramming the point home?

As a result, the album of the film of the book ends up being a little bit bland. Sure there’s a My Chemical Romance cover of Desolation Row, but it’s emulating the brash sounds of British punk too closely, and far too late. It’s an utterly forgettable cover, and amongst the stars of music that stud the rest of the tracklisting, it fades quickly from memory.

One point you have to give this soundtrack is that it plays a pretty good hand at being historically accurate. The film is set in an alternative version of the 1980s, so you get a pretty good dose of tracks from before or around that time. But in the end, it’s more a mixtape than a soundtrack. Unable to evoke the film’s murky mood in the same way the Kill Bill soundtracks brought soulful, classic cool back into vogue, Watchmen never transcends sounding like somebody’s “classic tracks” playlist.

The Watchmen soundtrack is out now through Warner Music.