CDVS: Various Artists: In Good Company: Original Soundtrack vs. Garden State: Music from the Motion Picture

When was the last time you watched a movie and felt compelled to buy its soundtrack on the way home? For most modern rock listeners, the answer is likely Garden State, if only because it was a charming collection of sentimental songs that weren't picked by studio executives under pressure to include artists from the same corporation's record label; over 500,000 copies have been sold without much promotion; and it's the only rock-oriented soundtrack in the past few years to truly resonate with music buyers.

In the `90s--especially after "alternative" went mainstream--rock soundtracks were successful even when the movies weren't. Singles, The Crow, Reality Bites, Clueless, Kids, Trainspotting--such soundtracks were not only cash cows, but they launched a few careers and hit singles. But in the Napster era, listeners have been more inclined to cherry-pick individual songs from the Net rather than pony up for the whole soundtrack. Garden State is one of the few movies to encourage sales of its musical companion. And fashioned similarly is the album for the recently released In Good Company.

Both films' soundtrack supervisors seem to have had the same goals: mine the mellow indie rock scene, include a few nostalgia favorites, reel in the college-age buyers. They also both love the Shins and Iron and Wine, who heavily figure into the projects (though the Shins are missing from the Company album). If In Good Company succeeds more with the younger crowd, it could do for Iron and Wine--with three moving songs on its album, including "Naked As We Came"--what Garden State did for the Shins, an indie favorite now enjoying decent radio airplay.

But the Company soundtrack is no Garden knockoff. It's a more mature collection, generous with the pop chestnuts (including Aretha Franklin's "Chain of Fools," the least white-bread track of either record) and xylophone-punctuated instrumentals by Stephen Trask (Hedwig and the Angry Inch). The Garden comp is a tad less yuppie--or more self-consciously hip, for that matter--featuring loads of emotive folk (Nick Drake, Colin Hay) and breezy electronic pop (Frou Frou, Zero 7).

The Company album isn't as time capsule-worthy or as evocative of its parent film as Garden is. But it, too, represents the bygone rock soundtrack that stands on its own as well as it represents another piece of art.--Mike Prevatt