Various Artists – Almost Alice

As a movie addict, the prospect of a new Tim Burton/Johnny Depp collaboration excited me. Throw in a cast of phenomenal supporting actors and the fact that it was a trip down the rabbit hole in a vividly stunning adventure through Wonderland, Alice in Wonderland was easily one of my most anticipated films of 2010.  The accompanying soundtrack, dubbed Almost Alice, however, was not a source of any anticipation for me; in reality, I was sacred to listen to it as a skim down the track listing didn’t offer much in terms of hope of enjoyment.

Luckily for me, Alice in Wonderland lived up to my expectations to be one of the better movies I’ve seen in a long time and Almost Alice blew all my expectations out of the water and delivered an album that, while bumpy, is actually rather enjoyable.

Opening with Alice by Avril Lavigne, the compilation kicks off on a surprisingly high note. Lavigne’s vocals are probably the strongest they’ve ever been in the soaring track that successfully pulls in the listener. She’s finally accepted her pop side completely and, in this case at least, it works perfectly. The All-American Rejects are next with The Poison, a song that is simultaneously the best and most annoying song on the album.  It starts off slow, with a steady acoustic strum and strong hook. Tyson Ritter’s vocals are soft and passionate and helps transform The Poison into a ballad-like anthem that has the potential to tear up the charts; but two and a half minutes in they pick it up, become louder and essentially ruin the flow of the track by trying to add a Bohemian Rhapsody vibe into the song.

No other song has that much of a juxtaposition of good and bad within themselves, but the differences between the songs are sometimes painfully clear. Electro-pop act Owl City offer a pitiful track in The Technicolor Phase that almost begs to be skipped yet is followed up by Shinedown’s rock anthem Her Name Is Alice, the clear highlight of the album and the only song I actually remember hearing throughout the course of the movie itself.

The entire album has that odd mixture of songs, some good, some bad and some just plain forgettable. Metro Station and Kerli offer tracks that make you cringe slightly while 3oh!3’s track with Neon Hitchis filled with electronic sound effects that make it unbearable to listen to and yet features an annoyingly catchy chorus. Franz Ferdinand, Motion City Soundtrack, Wolfmother, Plain White T’s and Mark Hoppus with Pete Wentz deliver songs that are good but forgettable and more background music. But when they hit the rock stride, like the aforementioned Shinedown track, Robert Smith’s Very  Good Advice and Grace Potter and the Nocturnals’ cover of Jefferson’s Aiplane’s White Rabbit, Almost Alice finally becomes memorable.

Alice in Wonderland is a movie I’ll probably watch quite a few times, Almost Alice, on the other hand, is a CD that has enough strong points to play it several times but not enough memorable tracks to make me go out of my way to listen to it again.