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200 CIGARETTES: MUSIC FROM THE MOTION PICTURE

(Mercury)

You'll find this soundtrack to the 1981-set film utterly superfluous unless you have a historical interest in what was on MTV (which co-produced the movie) in its earliest days. You've got your last-gasp-of-disco tunes (Kool & the Gang's "Ladies Night," Earth Wind & Fire's "Boogie Wonderland" in an unlistenable cover by Girls Against Boys), your punk/new-wave shades-shielded ugly Americans (the Cars' "Just What I Needed," the Ramones' "I Don't Care"), your videogenic chick bands (the Go Gos' "Our Lips Are Sealed," and lotsa Blondie: oldie "In the Flesh" and a slapped-together medley of "Rapture" and two new Blondie songs, featuring five guest rappers in what sounds like a desperate attempt at MTV/VH-1 cross-promotion), and your preponderance of English acts with perpetual bad hair days (Nick Lowe's "Cruel To Be Kind," Bow Wow Wow's "I Want Candy," Joe Jackson's "Different for Girls," Roxy Music's "More Than This," Dire Straits' "Romeo & Juliet," Elvis Costello's "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace Love & Understanding," and another wince-inducing cover, Harvey Danger doing the English Beat's "Save It for Later"). These songs are as delightful or as awful as you remember, and if you're the right age, you already own them all, unless you dumped them with the rest of your vinyl collection at the yard sale.

-- Gary Susman