Reworked versions of classic songs illuminate this soundtrack, with the film’s star Emily Browning covering 'Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)' (Eurythmics), 'Where Is My Mind?' (The Pixies), and 'Asleep' (The Smiths), and stars Carla Gugino and Oscar Isaac performing a sultry, musical theatre-inspired version of 'Love Is The Drug' (Roxy Music). Alison Mosshart and Carla Azar team up on a haunting version of 'Tomorrow Never Knows' (The Beatles). Björk fans will love the newly created version of 'Army Of Me (Sucker Punch Remix)' that features Skunk Anansie and clocks in at nearly seven minutes...

I'm not usually a fan of this sort of compilation album. The fact that all but one of the tracks collected here are covers of iconic tracks will no doubt put most people off approaching this album. I mean, come on, when has a covers collection ever even come close to the matching the originals?

However, the soundtrack to Sucker Punch is interesting in that it fuses pretty good covers of tracks with an upbeat Bond-esque soundtrack. Hmm, perhaps I'm not explaining this very well, but believe me it works. The closest example that I can think of is David Arnold's Shaken and Stirred: The David Arnold James Bond Project.

The album kicks off with Emily Browning singing the Eurythmics 1983 track 'Sweet Dreams'. This is followed by a remix of Björk's 1995 'Army of Me' (however, I seem to have about a dozen remixes of this track from its original release, so the only notable difference is the Sucker Punch score woven into the last third of the track.

Next up we have covers of Jefferson Airplane's 'White Rabbit'; Queen's 'I Want it All / We Will Rock You'; Stooges's 'Search & Destroy'; The Beatles's ; 'Tomorrow Never Knows'; The Pixies's 'Where is my Mind'; The Smiths's 'Asleep'; and Roxy Music's 'Love is the Drug'.

Overall I, rather surprisingly, enjoyed this album. However, be warned, it's not one that you'll want in your collection for much long after the hype of the movie dies down.

7

Darren Rea