The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 [Original Soundtrack] (CD - 2008)

Like its amiable and accessible predecessor, the soundtrack to THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS 2 presents a top-notch set of thoughtful pop/rock tunes. The film's moments of female bonding and coming of age are perfectly complemented by songs such as Michelle Branch's warm, sensitive "Together" and Aqualung's dreamy "Strange & Beautiful (I'll Put a Spell on You)."

Chronologically, the 11 songs on the "music from the motion picture" soundtrack album for The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 range from Cyndi Lauper's '80s evergreen "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" to Michelle Branch's newly written end title summing-up "Together" ("We belong together...We'll be strong forever"). Musically, they include James Otto's country effort "Sunset Man" and Craig David's R&B tune "Friday Night." But for the most part, this is a miscellany of mediocre pop music of the early 21st century, presumably the kind of thing one or more of the four late-teen principals in the picture might be expected to have on her iPod. The selection and sequencing seem to owe something to the compilers of the Now That's What I Call Music! series, as the musical styles switch from pop to country to R&B to punk pop and back to pop/rock. But none of this is memorable, and some of it doesn't make sense. Why is Eric Hutchinson's leadoff song called "Rock & Roll" when it's set to a simplified ska beat? While the album isn't quite dismissible as a Warner Bros. Records label sampler designed more to do favors to friends than to assemble music of any quality, it's a close call. ~ William Ruhlmann minimize