Music From The OC: Mix 5

by

Various Artists

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The O.C.'s is a typical teen-oriented soap opera show, but the soundtracks released are anything but typical. They eschew the mainstream and focus on smart & off-center music. The fifth soundtrack is the best released so far. Ranging from Imogene Heap's brilliant "Hide & Seek" to the Kaiser Chief's snotty Brit-Pop "Na Na Na Na Naaah", to Youth Group's fine cover of Alphaville's "Forever Young", to the straight indie-pop Of Montreal's "Requiem For O.M.M." to an acoustic reworking of the show's theme, Phantom Planet's "California 2005", there are nothing but first-rate songs.

Reflecting the show upon which these mixes hail from, The OC: Mix 5 has completely strayed from what these CDs once were. This album is inconsistently decent at its best. It's a real shame because I had very high hopes for this one, since the only two tracks I went in knowing were Youth Group's "Forever Young" and Phantom Planet's "California 2005," both of which are amazing songs, but can be purchased on iTunes for less than a dollar apiece. "Rock and Roll Queen" by The Subways is a good enough opening track; it's quite catchy. However, tracks 2-5 all fall flat and are highly uninteresting. I'd say the worst is "Publish My Love" by Rogue Wave, which sounds like a bad U2 cover of some sort. "Kids With Guns" is a pretty good track, but only for those of us who are Gorillaz fans. It wouldn't be surprising for the average listener to dismiss this as a boring track. Simply put, the first (nearly) half of this CD is garbage. The second half, from track 6 onward, is pretty good, but it's still not the mix 1-4 were. I can spin the first four mixes all night long. I'm gonna find myself reaching past this one on the stack whenever I feel the need to listen to an OC soundtrack.