"Juno" Movie Soundtrack- -Album Review

There's a reason why the "Juno Soundtrack" topped Billboard's Top 200 list four weeks after its release and it has a lot to do with the movie it was made for. Like the movie, the soundtrack is is sharp but innocent, performed as youthful melodies of guitar and rhyme. Barry Louis Polisar's first line sets the tone for both movie and album: "If I was a flower growing wild and free/all I want is you to be my sweet honey bee."

The music is saccharine. The songs are about growing up, and being unapologetically young. These are the kind of songs that could be heard written and played by teenagers in their rooms.

Have you ever been to one of those parties where someone admits they play the guitar, then someone urges them to play and the person refuses until the rest of the group insists--and then they play a simple tune with a slightly out-of-tune voice? The Juno soundtrack sounds like that party. Every song is sweet and innocent, a light tale told from the heart that lightly touches the heavy notes while also masking them with inside jokes about teen high jinks and video games.

Ivan Reitman and Ellen Page were the brains behind bringing in The Moldy Peaches' Kimya Dawson. As discussed in the liner notes, Reitman asked Page what she thought her character, Juno, would listen to. In a manner that befits an actor who knows her character well enough to be nominated for an Oscar, Page recommended The Moldy Peaches. Singer/Songwriter Dawson writes her songs like they were children's drawings; they're both whimsical and psychologically telling. In "So Nice So Smart," she balances lyrics about sneaking in your house to do roofies with your spouse and an admission that she likes to wear a bunny suit because it makes her feel cute.

I wouldn't say her songs are shallow. They play almost ethereally, as if they were stream of consciousness. And that is what makes you fall in love with them.

Producers Peter Afterman and Margaret Yen supplanted Dawson's tracks with those of indie darlings Belle and Sebastian, Sonic Youth, Cat Power, and The Velvet Underground. The indie tracks add some legitimacy to the sometimes light album.

Probably the most notable addition is actors Michael Cera (Bleaker) and Ellen Page's (Juno) version of the Moldy Peaches' "Anyone Else But You." Compare it to The Moldy Peaches original version (also on the album) and you'll find a surprising amount of heart and sweetness in the movie version--right down to the audible kiss at the end.