Since the soundtrack to I Am Sam, a film starring Sean Penn as a mentally handicapped man with a young daughter, is a disc of newly recorded Beatles covers, one might have expected the results to be retarded and childish. The saving grace appears to have been the speed with which the project materialized: everything here was commissioned and recorded in a span of three weeks, thereby preventing anyone from coming up with new and inspired ways to ruin Beatles songs, which is the usual approach.
The selections are split roughly between hits and non-hits; as such it’s easy to spot the Beatles connoisseurs among the tourists. Eddie Vedder, doing his best Rain Man impersonation on a mumbling "You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away," and Ben Harper, on a sickly sweet "Strawberry Fields," fall into the latter category; the wife-and-husband team of Aimee Mann and Michael Penn, with a perfectly balanced "Two of Us," are the most distinguished of the former. The Black Crowes’ "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" proves they’re as adept at aping Lennon/McCartney as they are at mimicking Page/Plant; Sheryl Crow’s "Mother Nature’s Son" proves no song is too sophisticated to be watered into sour country-rock mash. Every generation of rock bands, if it’s lucky, produces an outfit capable of fomenting "Revolution," and Grandaddy, pop laureates of planned obsolescence and post-tech gloom, are last year’s model: their version suggests disgruntled panhandlers waiting outside a Cars concert. Similarly, once in a long while comes someone (say, Leonard Cohen or Leonard Nimoy) who really knows how to drain the life out of a pretty melody, and Nick Cave’s bloodless monotone reading of "Let It Be" gives the ballad the back-alley gashing and chilly autopsy it’s long deserved.
Weezer are the Beatles of emo, so a tribute was inevitable as soon as the genre’s natural disinclinations to shamelessness were overcome. The only drawback for an emo band contemplating a Weezer song is that it’s guaranteed to be the best tune in their set. And so Rock Music is essentially an act of enlightenment: it allows each band here to be themselves, only better. It’s impossible to screw up "Say It Ain’t So," and Further Seems Forever don’t try. The screamo formula — bellow the first line of every verse death-metal style — suits "My Name Is Jonas" (by Affinity) and "Holiday" (by Glasseater) just fine. You could always tell Jonas was a little angry, anyway.
In the other direction, Dashboard Confessional and the Ataris — the big pussies — unplug "Jamie" and "The Good Life." Elliott imagine "The World Has Turned" as Bends-era Radiohead and Joshua Tree–era U2, framing emo’s holy trinity in a single song! As for the rest, well, hearing indistinguishable pop-punk bands reheating Pinkerton tracks is only slightly more exciting than hearing Paul Westerberg (speaking of emo classic-rock godfathers) croak "Nowhere Man." Speaking of which: I think I’ll go watch paint dry.
