Add some emotionally driven lyrics and sounds to an overly dramatic teen series, and what do you get? That’s right, the second soundtrack to “Dawson’s Creek” imitator “One Tree Hill.” With dependable pop-emo songs ranging from Fall Out Boy to Strays Don’t Sleep, the soundtrack could probably prove serviceable for any number of teen-oriented, pre-college TV shows and essentially becomes a collection of album rejects.
If the soundtrack comes from a show that has the ability to make girls across the nation cry their eyes out, it should be expected that they’ve got the anthems to back up those teary-eyed scenes. For intense break ups: Mozella’s “Light Years Away” and Michelle Featherstone’s “Coffee and Cigarettes.”
You can’t help but dread yet another sad song. It’s almost impossible not to see the different plots of the show run through your head as you listen to each song.
Not only do the songs themselves mirror the show’s melodramatic plots, but they’re so maudlin that four minutes sound like nine.
And it’s hard not to become depressed after listening to these “emo” songs for that amount of time. The lyrics play on perpetual sadness with typical complaints about complicated relationships. It’s been done before and the numbers of people who want to hear them are shrinking. We can only listen to so many of the same songs until we naturally become bored and want something new. Here, the emo song sounds like an endangered species.
Really, the new “One Tree Hill” soundtrack doesn’t deliver anything that can be appreciated by people tired of hearing about relationship drama and listening to their friends drone on their livejournals.
If the album has any success, expect it to fade just as quickly as a kid’s pithy puppy love.
Various Artists
Friends with Benefit (One Tree Hill Soundtrack)
Warner Bros.
Rating: 1 1/2 out of 5 stars