I Love You, Beth Cooper

Audio Mixers: Andy Wallace; Casey Stone.
Recording information: Bastyr University, Kenmore, WA.
On this sondtrack to the high school rom-com, music supervisor Patrick Houlihan splits the difference between tracks that a high-school student of 2009 actually might be listening to and songs that screenwriter Larry Doyle, who graduated from high school in 1976, was listening to around then. This works, perhaps because basic rock & roll music hasn't really changed that much in 30-plus years. For example, Australian band Airbourne's "Too Much, Too Young, Too Fast" is a sound-alike for any number of songs by an predecessor AC/DC. Then, too, the old songs are sequenced toward the end, separated from the newer, earlier tracks by some of Christophe Beck's scoring. Adding diversity is the acoustic performance of Eleni Mandell's "Forget Me," performed here and in the film by 15-year-old Violet Columbus, who just happens to have the same last name as the director. It introduces a JUNO-like tone that thankfully is not carried through on the rest of the album. Mandell's own rock version closes things out.