CBS
The death of a model finds Jim Brass (Paul Guilfoyle), left, and Gil Grissom (William Petersen) investigating the Las Vegas homeless community in an episode of "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation."
The boundaries are shrinking all the time. It was actually kind of a surprise to hear The Who's "Who Are You" anthem as the theme for this cheeky CBS series, but we got used to it quickly. The song's theme of mystery and identity, plus its pulsing power pop groove, is a perfect fit for the vaguely unpleasant and compulsively viewable series. You feel hip just watching it. Music for crime-solving
"CSI: Crime Scene Investigation -- The Soundtrack" (Hip-O)
Review by Burl Burlingame
bburlingame@starbulletin.comThere's been a trend among shows lately, particularly independently produced series, to use pop music in the soundtracks -- the more obscure, the better. "Homicide" started the trend, but that was because the show was ornery and the producers liked to have fun with the format. "Popular" and "Roswell" even gave artist information at the end during the credits, an incredible plug for struggling artists. Other shows deliberately browse through mp3.com looking for tunes -- they're cheap for the rights. They don't charge like The Who would, unless the Who song is nearly a quarter-century old, like "Who Are You."
"CSI: Crime Scene Investigation -- The Soundtrack" uses lots of power-metal, neo-creepy tunes, full of nightmarish angst and driving sub-woofer bass. Oh, yeah, that's another trend fed by technology -- decent sound out of your TV. The boundaries between music, TV and radio are drying up. You're more likely to hear a cool new song these days on a dramatic series on a network than on radio, or even on MTV. Look at the kinds of shows premiering this fall -- half of them are artsy dramas directed and produced by music-video grads.
The music on this soundtrack album suits "CSI." It's bass-heavy and sampled and packaged and sort of boring unless there's an arresting visual in front of you. Curiously, "Who Are You" sounds likes it's been processed, and the sound is honky and squeaky. Other golden oldies are the Chambers Brothers' "Time Has Come Today" and Robbie Robertson's "Unbound."
New stuff includes Badmarsh and Shri's "Day By Day," which owes a huge debt to Dido, and Timo Maas' "To Get Down," which has been ingeniously remixed by Fatboy Slim. Grand Theft Auto's "We Luv You" is a raver standard. The standout new track is The Wallflowers' "Everybody Out of the Water," a great song unlikely to be heard on the radio.
"CSI" incidental-music composer John M. Keane contributes "Investigation Suite" and "Grissom's Overture," two profoundly dull tracks that close the album.
A certain segment of the listening public -- the actual demographic of those most likely to enjoy this album -- will be annoyed that this is one of the newly engineered CDs that has coding to prevent ripping tracks to their mp3 players. The disc also provides no sequencing and data information to CD players other than the track numbers. One step forward, two steps back.
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