There's a movie coming out called "Into The Wild," it's directed by Sean Penn I believe and it's about this kid who leaves his luxurious existence to make it on his own, living off the land. Previews of the movie inspire me to renounce this hollow life I've chosen and make tracks for Alaska; but they also smack of pretentiousness and make me think this thing might irritate me.
The soundtrack to said movie, however, has no pretentiousness to it whatsoever. It's just Eddie Vedder - lead singer of Pearl Jam - an acoustic guitar, and the occasional accompanying instrumentation.
On any given Pearl Jam album, there's usually one or two slow, strummy acoustic songs; they're generally a nice change of pace from all the requisite rocking that's going on. In that sense, they're very memorable, and they make for great down time at Pearl Jam shows when the band decides to put away the electric guitars for a few songs.
But the Into The Wild sountrack doesn't have that at all. Nothing here is very memorable, they all kind of blend together into one cohesive 33 minute block of music. Which is nice ... if you're in the mood for that kind of thing. After two listens in two days, I'm not indicating any one song that stands out as a definitive single, or at least one of those songs you want to listen to over and over. Pretty much, you have to be in the mood for some mellow Pearl Jam, sans the guitar gods and drum lord we've grown accustomed to.
It's not quite Johnny Cash, not quite early Wilco, but it's somewhere in there. Either way, I managed to get a good power nap in there, so if nothing else, throw this album on top of the pile of songs you use to go to sleep. You won't be disappointed