GHOST WORLD
ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK
(Shanachie)

The soundtrack to Terry Zwigoff’s darkly comic indie film makes wise and extensive use of the director’s collection of ancient 78s. It’s difficult, as Zwigoff mournfully points out in his liner notes, to use old blues and jazz tracks without making one feel trapped in a Woody Allen film — and indeed much of Ghost World has a jaunty, tinny air that’ll be familiar to anyone who sat through, say, The Purple Rose of Cairo. But that doesn’t diminish the archival appeal of any of the gems Zwigoff has unearthed here, from Skip James’s " Devil Got My Woman " and Robert Wilkins’s " That’s No Way To Get Along " to a trio of sublime calypso tracks from ’30s bandleader Lionel Belasco.

The New York–based old-timy jazz outfit Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks offer up newly recorded versions of oldies like " You’re Just My Type " that sound authentic, but two other contemporary numbers are merely intrusive. In his liner notes, Zwigoff suggests American music has being going downhill since the 1920s, and he seems to have included the cheesy " Pickin’ Cotton Blues " and the faux hip-hop " Graduation Rap " to prove his point. It’s a too easy swipe at contemporary pop that underscores the film’s real flaw: an occasionally stifling air of cultural elitism.

Issue Date: August 16 - 23, 2001