Various Artists – Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)

When I started this blog I decided to go through albums, not artists, in alphabetical order so I wouldn't have to go through all the albums by the same artist in a row. Of course, this means that there are still some compilation album series that I have to post in a row. So, here is the soundtrack for the second Austin Powers film. This soundtrack is not by far as good as the first one. I probably wouldn't even have bought this one had I not found it in a sale basket of a department store for one euro. There are a few good songs on this album, but those ones I generally also have on another album. Much like the second film wasn't as good as the first one, this soundtrack is also a much blander experience as the first one. It has much more contemporary rock and pop music and less great old classics.



There are a couple of classic songs on this album. The most notable is My Generation by The Who. There's also The Guess Who's song American Woman, but on this album it is the version performed by Lenny Kravitz. Then there are some good songs by more contemporary artists, such as Bugging' by The Flaming Lips, Draggin' the Line by R.E.M. and Espionage by Green Day. Also, Beautiful Stranger by Madonna is a decent song despite being quite commercial. In addition to these, there are a couple of songs that I had not heard before this film. Alright by The Lucy Nation is a decent alternative rock song in the 90's style and I'll Never Fall In Love Again performed by Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello is a true jewel of a song. Scott Weiland's and Big Blue Missile's version of old Zombies classic Time of the Season doesn't really work that well in my opinion. The original song is so good that this almost just seems to mock the original. One of the funniest songs on the album is the version of Just the Two of Us sung by film's character Dr. Evil. It shows how great Mike Myers is in using music in his films. Here's a clip of that song. The album ends in strange remix of Soul Bossa Nova that was the theme of the first film. This version is titled Dim's Space-A-Nova. It's not quite as good as the original.

Where the first Austin Powers soundtrack was well curated and featured great music from both eras of the movie, here the focus is more on making new versions of old songs thus mixing those up a bit, but the result is not quite as pleasant to listen to. I have to admit that I don't really ever listen to this album. I've maybe couple of times used it on a DJ gig to play some Madonna to audiences who require some commercial pop music that I don't own. The album doesn't even look that great. It's a soulless jewel box CD. I own some great looking soundtrack albums where the album covers have been influenced by great movie posters, but here the album cover doesn't really convince me.

When I've received some old compilation albums from my grandmother or from my parents, I've sometimes wondered how someone ends up with those kinds of albums, but I guess this is the answer. They've been bought cheap in a sale basket somewhere because there are a couple of good songs on them. This is probably something that the younger generations will never understand as almost all music is available online.

Listen to the album on Spotify.