The Hangover

The Hangover mixes an eclectic selection of music with choice sound-bites and original 'songs' from the movie. And while it’s gratifying to see the movie translated into music with its humour intact, the compilers have left us a little wanting for substance. Many listeners’ introduction to Danzig will now be “Thirteen” and “Take It Off” will be their first taste of the Donnas, both of whom have had distinctly loftier achievements in their careers. Similarly, Phil Collins’ “In The Air Tonight” is a great joke with the cast of the movie (or the Cadbury’s gorilla) to orchestrate our laughter, but left as is becomes a campy time-waster on the album. Not so for The Cramps’ faithful and fabulous cover of “Fever”.

The talented Ed Helms (who plays the repressed Dentist Stu) gets his 57 seconds of fame with “Stu’s Song”, an endearing improvised song written for, wait for it… a tiger. If anything, we could have done with a lot more Stu and a lot less Phil on the record. The actor cameos and sound-bites reminded me immediately of my favourite parts of the film, where the uninspired jukebox like tracklist did not.

If The Hangover were waiting nervously in the hallway, tapping its leg with a pen and praying quietly that we’d give it a job, a very short conversation would inevitably follow: “Thank you for coming. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”