Album Review: More Music from Austin Powers 2

A sequel to the soundtrack for a sequel? The Austin Powers cash cow seems just about ready to kick the milking stool. Fortunately, More Music from Austin Powers 2 tries to avoid the charge of merely trying to cash in by including snippets of dialogue and a fair number of movie-relevant songs (They Might Be Giants' "Dr Evil"). Unlike the hero of the execrable movie, the album remains firmly fixed in the '60s. It sadly lacks the Bacharach tunes and kitschy cover versions of the first two soundtracks, but it has a solid sense of pop music in Swingin' London, including the Monkees' "I'm a Believer" and the Zombies' "Time of the Season." The Guess Who's original version of "American Woman" also surfaces, the anti-American lyrics making more sense in the hands of Mike Myers' fellow Canadians than in Lenny Kravitz's. Even the '90s pieces have a retro groove: the Propellerheads' "Crash!" fairly smacks of a-go-go. Once again straddling the decades is Madonna's '60s-tinged "Beautiful Stranger", in the form of a none-too-inspiring remix by Vic Calderone. A surprisingly listenable, coherent album from the "More music from..." genre of soundtracks. B+