Lords of Dogtown - Music From the Motion Picture Review
by Travis
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You've seen the real story, now see the story the way everyone involved wishes it happened! Stacy Peralta's acclaimed 2002 documentary, Dogtown and Z-Boys capitalized on the recent and unavoidable popularity of skateboarding, with a teary-eyed remembrance of some of the first and most influential freestyle skaters. 2005's Lords of Dogtown slaps a new coat of wax on the legend and some really silly looking wigs on some up and coming young actors. The former is great documentary filmmaking and the latter is pure fiction, simple as that. What is truly amazing, however, is that the makers of the two films apparently did not share notes when compiling the film's soundtracks. One has to imagine that there will be a certain crossover audience between the two films. Unfortunate for them, if those fans are dedicated enough to collect both records, they are inexcusably similar, even going too far as to repeat several songs exactly. If you're only going to buy one though, get Lords of Dogtown. It probably won't be the better film, but the soundtrack, if only for the sake of quantity, is a better bet.
Real movie soundtracks have been on the slide since the early eighties, with today's examples consisting of little more than nostalgia trips or vehicles for one or two hit singles by some artist on the rise. Lords of Dogtown falls into the memory lane category, but like similar excursions with the ghost of Rock and Roll past, like The Big Chill and Dazed and Confused, the soundtrack does an adequate job capturing a moment in time. Like a black and white photograph, the smattering of classic rock and covers of classic songs by modern bands captures the essence, if not the musically historical fact, of mid-seventies California. One's first instinct may be that this record should be jam packed with punk rock and the California hardcore that was really kicking into gear in the late seventies, but having done their homework (probably by listening to the album for Dogtown and Z-Boys), the album's producers realized correctly that most of the movie's action takes place prior to the musical point-of-no-return known as the Ramones. Thus, FM radio dominates Lords of Dogtown. Nazareth, the Allman Brothers Band, Deep Purple, and Ted Nugent all contribute familiar classic rock nuggets, as do David Bowie, Black Sabbath and Foghat. Mercifully, the song selection steers clear of some of those artists tracks which have been most abused on modern classic rock radio. So, instead of "Smoke on the Water", we get "Space Truckin'" and rather than "Cat Scratch Fever", the listener is left with "Motor City Madhouse." You get the idea.
Other than the obvious benefit of exposing some of the film's younger fans to the Rock hymns of their forefathers through this soundtrack, the producers of Lords of Dogtown have added little to Rock soundtrack pantheon, only managing to cobble together a nondescript classic rock compilation album, worthy of "Have a Nice Day" or "Goin South". Besides of couple of diamonds in the rough like the Iggy and T. Rex songs, there's nothing new here. The inclusion of Sweet's "Fox on the Run" made for a nice touch, though. The saving grace should be the fairly anachronistic (compared to the rest of the record) cover songs that punctuate the disc. Social Distortion covering the Clash staple from London Calling, "Death or Glory" starts the disc off in promising fashion, but Rise Against limping through "Nervous Breakdown" is uninspiring to say the least and the less said about Sparklehorse's pathetic take on "Wish You Were Here" the better. Lords of Dogtown is decent as soundtracks go, but why not just snap on your local classic rock station and save the fifteen bucks?
CD Info and Links
Lords of Dogtown - Music From the Motion Picture Label:Geffen
Rating: 
Track Listing:
01. Social Distortion - "Death Or Glory"
02. Nazareth - "Hair Of The Dog"
03. Foghat - "I Just Want To Make Love To You"
04. Sweet - "Fox On The Run"
05. Ted Nugent - "Motor City Madhouse"
06. Joe Walsh - "Turn To Stone"
07. The Allman Brothers Band - "One Way Out"
08. Jimi Hendrix - "Fire"
09. Deep Purple - "Space Truckin'"
10. Iggy Pop - "Success"
11. David Bowie - "Suffragette City"
12. Black Sabbath - "Iron Man"
13. Rise Against - "Nervous Breakdown"
14. T.Rex - "20th Century Boy"
15. Rod Stewart - "Maggie May"
16. Sparklehorse - "Wish You Were Here"
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