Album review: 'The Runaways' Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

It takes a real helping of celebrity chutzpah for Dakota Fanning to cover a tune like the Runaways' "California Paradise," a sarcastic ode to Hollywood street urchin life. For Fanning and film cohort Kristen Stewart, their night life equivalent probably involves dinner at the West Hollywood Urth Caffe followed by (non-alcoholic) cocktails at Drai's. But on the soundtrack to "The Runaways," their updated takes on the scruffy oeuvre of Curie, Jett and company feel tossed off in a way the original Runaways might appreciate.

Like her fellow platinum-tressed actress-turned-rocker Taylor Momsen, Fanning takes her vocal cues from Courtney Love's gnarled howl. But on record, Fanning sounds absolutely true to her motivation for making this soundtrack: She's a beautiful, well-paid actress playing the part of a beautiful, famous rock star playing the character of a broke L.A. punk vixen. But this town is built on pretty people dressing down, and the deep irony of her musical role as Curie is unexpectedly on target given myth-building source material such as  "Dead End Justice" and "Cherry Bomb."

Stewart takes a passenger-seat role here, but her deeper register is a worthy compliment in this very silly formula. The rest of the soundtrack is essential but obvious '70s sleaze-rock fare, including the Stooges and Bowie, and MC5.

-- August Brown

 Various Artists

' "The Runaways" Original Motion Picture Soundtrack'

(Atlantic Records)

Two stars

Comments

[politics]

Very nice songs this is really orignal motion thank you.

[tgr55]

Interesting blog. There is a fascinating generational component to the Runaways story: Joan Jett, Cherie Curie, et al. are members of Generation Jones (born 1954-1965, between the Boomers and Generation X). Understanding the generational context to their story really fills in the picture.

Google Generation Jones, and you’ll see it’s gotten lots of media attention, and many top commentators from many top publications and networks (Washington Post, Time magazine, NBC, Newsweek, ABC, etc.) now specifically use this term. In fact, the Associated Press' annual Trend Report chose the Rise of Generation Jones as the #1 trend of 2009. . I found this page helpful because it gives a pretty good overview of recent media interest in GenJones: http://generationjones.com/2009latest.html