Album Review: Stubbs the Zombie Soundtrack

I find some of the best stuff while I'm on "the throne". I was idly flipping the pages of a very old issue of Computer Gaming World, when I saw a preview for a video game called Stubbs the Zombie--and more specifically, its soundtrack's unique concept. The game is set in a 50's vision of the future, and the soundtrack follows this with Baby Boom-era pop songs sung by modern alternative artists. I was first drawn in by the cover of Sinatra's "Strangers in the Night" by Cake--they're one of my all-time favorites in spite of lead singer John McCrea's shoddy treatment of his audience at a show I was at a few years ago. They do a great job with the song, as I expected, but so does pretty much everyone else on the album. You just have to get past the "poof factor" of some of the songs, and enjoy them for the pop culture kitsch that they are. If you're going to head to iTunes for the best songs on the album, I'd go with the aforementioned Cake cover, followed by the final three songs of the album--Clem Snide's ska-ified version of "Tears On My Pillow", Milton Mapes's twangy rendition of "Lonesome Town", and the Phantom Planet original "The Living Dead". Just to round out the top songs to a square 5, let's go with Death Cab For Cutie's surprisingly faithful remake of "Earth Angel". The only outright miss on the album is the muted vocals of the Dandy Warhols on their cover of the Everly Brothers' "All I Have To Do Is Dream". All in all, this unique concept album gets a high recommendation from me for fans of oldies or indie-punk-emo rock.