21 [Original Soundtrack]

Performer: Original Soundtrack
Artist: Soulwax; Electrocute; Kasabian
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: The soundtrack for the card-counting thriller 21 focuses exclusively on catchy club tracks, and subsequently complements perfectly the anxious pace and glammy Vegas subject matter of the film. There are many stars scattered throughout the soundtrack--Rihanna, Peter Bjorn and John, Broadcast, and LCD Soundsystem--but the true stand-outs belong to the lesser lights: Get Shakes, who deliver the electro-disco thumper "Sister Self Doubt" and Soulwax, who remixes the Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want" into a swirling mirror ball of breaks and edits. Though the trailer to the 2008 Robert Luketic film, 21 -- based-on-a-true-story about card-counting MIT students who go to Vegas to win at blackjack -- features songs from both Spoon and the Doors, though neither are included in the actual soundtrack, which opts more for the electronic-influenced rock that goes well with scenes of the Vegas cityscape and money and sex. Most of the tracks here are run-of-the-mill, and/or previously released (Rihanna, MGMT, UNKLE, and PB&J are the bigger names here, alongside unknowns like Get Shakes and Knivez Out), but there are a couple of pieces that make the soundtrack more than just your average big studio release. Mark Ronson takes Kasabian's otherwise bothersome "L.S.F. (Lost Souls Forever)" to a nice, horn-driven arrangement (as only he knows best), Soulwax does a bouncy remix of the Rolling Stones "You Can't Always Get What You Want" that doesn't want to work but somehow does, and LCD Soundsystem were commissioned to write "Big Ideas" (co-produced by Dave Sardy, the former Barkmarket -- if anyone still remembers them -- frontman who found more luck as a producer, and who is in charge of this particular soundtrack, as well as the track "Giant," with Liela Moss). The song features lots of driving electric guitars, James Murphy drums and keys, and the phrase "The way you make me feel, You got me so tied up," and makes the whole soundtrack worth checking out. ~ Marisa Brown

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