Various Artists Music plays a huge part in director Wes Anderson's meticulously crafted world. For this movie set in India, he's come up with a typically wide-ranging, mind-boggling soundtrack largely culled from the mid-'60s and early '70s, despite the fact that the film is set in the present. Though Indian cinema has come to mean Bollywood for most Americans, Anderson pays tribute to art filmmaker Satyajit Ray by including music from some of his movies, mines the early (1963-1970), lesser-known oeuvre of James Ivory, and features traditional Indian tunes. This may throw fans of Bollywood's more frantic style at first (even if the upbeat go-go "Typewriter Tip, Tip, Tip," co-sung by superstar Asha Bhosle, gets close), but the music's eerie charm works in insidious ways. British Invasion pop, an enduring love of Anderson's, is represented by obscure songs from well-known combos (three cuts from the Kinks' 1970 album Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One), as well as obscure songs from obscure performers, like Peter Sarstedt's 1969 nugget "Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)." Add a fantastic Rolling Stones pop tune from 1965, a couple of Western classical tracks, a popular French hit by Joe Dassin, and you have a CD that's all over the map yet oddly consistent in its eccentricity. --Elisabeth Vincentelli
Track list: 1. Where Do You Go to (My Lovely) - Peter Sarstedt, 2. Title Music from Satyajit Ray's Film Jalshagar - Ustad Vilayat Khan, 3. This Time Tomorrow - the Kinks, 4. Title Music from Satyajit Ray's Film Teen Kanya - Satyajit Ray, 5. Title Music from Merchant-Ivory's Film the Householder - Ali Akbar Khan, 6. 'Ruku's Room' from Satyajit Ray's Film Joi Baba Felunath - Satyajit Ray, 7. 'Charu's Theme' from Satyajit Ray's Film Joi Baba Felunath - Satyajit Ray, 8. Title Music from Merchant Ivory's Film Bombay Talkie - Shankar/Jaikishan, 9. 'Montage' from Nityananda Datta's Film Baksa Badal - Satyajit Ray, 10. Prayer - Jodphur Sikh Temple Congregation, 11. 'Farewell to Earnest' from Merchant-Ivory's Film the Householder - Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, 12. 'The Deserted Ballroom' from Merchant-Ivory's Film Shakespeare Wallah - Satyajit Ray, 13. Suite Bergamasque: 3. 'Clair de Lune' - Alexis Weissenberg, 14. 'Typewriter Tip, Tip, Tip' from Merchant-Ivory's Film Bombay Talkie - Shankar/Jaikishan, 15. Memorial - Narlai Village Troubador, 16. Strangers - the Kinks, 17. Praise Him - Udaipur Convent School Nuns and Students, 18. Symphony No.7 in a (Op.92) Allegro Con Brio - Fritz Reiner, 19. Play with Fire - the Rolling Stones, 20. 'Arrival in Benaras' from Merchant-Ivory's Film the Guru - Ustad Vilayat Khan, 21. Powerman - the Kinks, 22. Les Champs-Elysees - Joe Dassin