Various Artists – Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen The Album

I remember when I was really young, like ten or twelve, and my brother got the Star Wars sound track.  We were so excited.  The original scores were great, and listening to the Star Wars theme song whenever we liked felt like a modern luxury.  The same went for when we got the Mission Impossible soundtrack, there was that awesome theme song, and all the great original scores from the movie.  So when I picked up the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen The Album for review I was pretty stoked.  But then I glanced at the track listing and my enthusiasm dropped drastically…

The album feels like a promotional disc or greatest radio hits of 2009 compilation rather than anything even remotely Transformers related.  For the record I did see Revenge of the Fallen, and from what I remember the music was simply used as something to go with the innumerable scenes of exploding buildings and robots.  As far as action sequence music goes I guess tracks like Nickelback’s “Burn it to the Ground” and Linkin Park’s “New Divide” serve their purpose, adequately providing some fairly safe and heavy rock ideal for slow-motion action sequences.  Then of course there are the slow ones, likeGreen Day’s “21 Guns” or The Fray’s overplayed “Never Say Never,” which work for the movie’s moment of sorrow and despair.  Even so, they feel forced, like Warner just wanted to find another outlet for their singles.

And then there are the songs that aren’t even in the movie but somehow appear on the album.  They include tracks by The All American Rejects, Theory of a Deadman, Hoobastank, and Avenged Sevenfold.  Why are these here!?  What purpose does their presence play?  Who knows.  Again, they’re simple radio fare that by now you’ve probably heard too much, or even if you happen to be a fan, already own in some capacity.  The only truly unique track on the album is also one that didn’t make the final cut of the film, Cheap Trick’s “Transformer: Revenge of the Fallen Remix.”  While it’s hidden deep at the far end of the album, it should be the centerpiece.  The remix is actually a rocked-up reinterpretation of the original Transformer’s theme song, and actually sounds pretty fun.  Now why wasn’t this in the film?

Now it’s true that this is a soundtrack and not the instrumental music that drove the movie, which can be found on Steve Jablonsky’s Transformer: Revenge of the Fallen (The Original Score) so I guess I can’t criticize it on that level, but I still wonder exactly why most of these songs were even considered.  Calling them cumulatively the Revenge of the Fallen Album is deceptive and misleading.  This is simply a rebranding of this years rock singles in the hopes of tricking consumers into buying the same music they already own.  In other words, in today’s iTunes single landscape the album is unnecessary – even a little insulting.