The Record Music Magazine

MUSIC FROM THE OC: MIX 1 – EMI
Record Rating: ****

Like radio in decades gone by, hip new TV shows are fast becoming an outlet for new bands to be discovered. Foremost among these shows, is The OC (short for Orange County, California) ~ the scandalous teen drama that’s watched in over 50 countries worldwide and has introduced a whole lot of snappy jargon into the teen vocabulary. Paris Hilton even made a guest appearance in an episode, playing an ironic parody of herself, claiming to just love Orange County.

Music From The OC: Mix 1 is the show’s audio companion and features a great lineup of alternative rock and pop you may remember as the soundtrack to lesbian kisses, family punch ups, dirty double-crosses and other cute plotlines. Pretty close to the handmade intimacy of a teenager’s iPod play list, the 12 tracks on offer include Brit rockers Doves with their lush Caught By The River, the unsettlingly beautiful Paint The Silence by Supertramp-sound-alike South, and the raucous dark pop of Jem’s Just A Ride, written especially for the season’s finale. Elsewhere, new bands like Spoon (The Way We Get By) and The Dandy Warhols (We Used To Be Friends) bring Springsteen-esque rock to the county’s limits, while the show’s instantly infectious theme song (Phantom Planet’s California) makes the listener wade through the show’s roller coaster ride of feelings.

There are omissions, songs by Coldplay, The Killers, Beth Orton and Beck have all played prominent roles on various episodes (you’ll find the latter on the companion CDs to this first mix ~ four have already been released in the US) but Mix 1 is still a good snapshot of today’s Top 40.

As an added bonus, the CD also contains some bonus multimedia content if you insert this in your computer ~ including web access to a special site, where fans can view the scenes from the show, which many of these tracks compliment.

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