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SB1: A SKIBOARDING JOURNEY

(Overall Entertainment/Rhino)

The title of Blink 182's contribution to this "extreme sports"-themed comp says it all: "Enthused." A collection of previously released punk rock and hip-hop, SB1: A Skiboarding Journey doesn't exactly carve fresh powder. But like the gung-ho sportsmen featured in the between-songs sound bites (sample dialogue: "Stratton Mountain, where snowboarding was born," spoken with unironic reverence), everyone involved with the project sounds totally stoked.

The weirdest thing about this CD, aside from the image of Master P riding a chair lift, is "Set It," an improbably good B-side from G-funk woulda-been Kurupt. There's also a Hieroglyphics posse cut ("The Who," from their not-exactly-overwhelming comeback album, 3rd Eye Vision), the Beatnuts' sharp, criminal-minded "Do You Believe," and NOFX's affectionately misanthropic "Liza." Even when the disc finds a common thread between rap and rock, it's still a study in contrasts: Mo' Thugs' "Mighty Mighty Warrior" suggests Christian soldiers trying to ward off Judgment Day by rhyming faster than the speed of sound; Sublime's almost-hip-hop "Superstar Punami" suggests the kind of groupie-nailing anthems Brad Nowell would have written had he lived to reap Sublime's rewards. Still, SB1 seems far more worthwhile than the sport it's meant to commemorate, a crackpot hybrid of skiing and snowboarding apparently invented to give "aggressive" in-line skaters someone to laugh at.

-- Alex Pappademas