The ‘American Teen’ soundtrack isn’t very deep but it fits the movie

Shooting a documentary about high school teenagers must be like trying to capture a smoke ring in a jar, but director Nanette Burstein has spun a thousand hours of footage into gold with "American Teen," a documentary that follows four Indiana teenagers through their senior year of high school. Embarrassingly personal at times, goofy and hopeful at others, the film, which opens today, has been aptly described as a documentary version of "The Breakfast Club."

Bookended with anthemic paeans to the glories of youth, the soundtrack to "American Teen," which opens with Black Kids' "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You" and closes with MGMT's "Kids," offers a cross-section of nearly every indie rock trend du jour. The soundtrack's neither deep nor particularly broad, but it makes a perfect backdrop for the film. You can listen to streams from the soundtrack at the end of this post.

Curated by music supervisor and KCRW DJ Chris Douridas, the compilation segues from melancholic beauty like Patrick Watson's "The Great Escape," Cat Stevens' "Trouble" and Nyles Lannon's "Train" to exuberant dance rock like the Ting Tings' "Great DJ" ("…and the drums, and the drums, and the drums…") and "Dawn of the Dead" by Does it Offend You, Yeah?.

The only disappointments on the 15-track album are Sunny Day Sets Fire's "Lack of View," which relegates a terrific British band to sonic wallpaper, and Luna Halo's "Kings and Queens." You can almost hear the Svengali record producer barking orders: "Give me something like Avril Lavigne but harder and with a dude singing."

But it also features what may be the perfect teenage love song, Ryan Lindsey's "Let's Go Out." Promising his sweetie a night to remember, Lindsay declares: "I'll be taking care of you all night/We won’t be done until it feels all right/You tell 'em all you're coming home in the morning/Cuz I'll be taking care of you, sweet darling." How's he going to take care of her? By wearing cute clothes, complementing his date's cute clothes and paying for her dinner. It’s an oddly simplistic note for a film that makes a point of burrowing beneath teen movie archetypes, but even a straightforward documentary needs to cut loose with some unambiguous bubblegum pop.

--Elina Shatkin

LISTEN: Ting Ting's "Great DJ" / Ryan Lindsey's "Let's Go Out"

Comments

[Tony D'Ambrosio]

I graduated from Jefferson High School in Indiana, what school is this documentary at?

[Margaret Wappler - LA Times]

It's at Warsaw Community High School in Warsaw, Indiana.

[Terry Thomas]

I am totally buying the Ryan Lindsey record, that songs amazing, why isn't he in the stores yet?