It’s impossible to discuss the cultural juggernaut that is the Twilight saga without offending someone. That being said, I’m going to talk about it anyway. My goal in reviewing this album is to consider two main issues: the aesthetics of the soundtrack, and what its continued existence means to “maltstream” culture.

“Maltstream” is a term coined by the blog HIPSTER RUNOFF that is a portmanteau of “mainstream” and “alternative” and describes the intersection of “hipster” and “pop” cultures. Maltstreamers are the people who are familiar with the music you hear on the radio and music that you’d describe as “indie.” Maltstreamers listen to music that is semi-obscure. I describe myself as a maltstreamer, see almost all of my friends as maltstreamers, and think that they are probably in the majority at Yale.

Strangely enough, The Twilight Saga: New Moon soundtrack, evaluated independently of the Twilight phenomenon, is perhaps the most maltstream album to ever be released. It contains contributions from semi-obscure and critically acclaimed bands like Grizzly Bear, Beach House, Bon Iver, and St. Vincent. Death Cab for Cutie supplied the soundtrack’s first single, “Meet Me at the Equinox” and DCfC are the quintessential maltstream band—they are insanely famous, yet they’ve never had a real, chart-topping hit.

Things become problematic when you remember that this album is related to the Twilight series. When the track list for this album was released, chances are, millions of Urban-Outfitters-clad 17-to-24-year-olds threw up a little in their mouths. The people who usually listen to this music are the types who hate Twilight. This soundtrack only serves to promote the vitriol for Twilight and does no favors for the bands it features. At the same time, I don’t think careers will be ruined over it. In the age of piracy and music-blog culture, the concept of “selling out” doesn’t mean what it used to, because bands need to make money. Perhaps this soundtrack is only one in a series of banal events that create maltstreamers, like when “Such Great Heights” appeared on both an M&M commercial and the Garden State soundtrack.

Despite its cultural reverberations, the album itself is subpar. A few of the songs, most notably “Meet Me at the Equinox” and the Editors’ “No Sound But the Wind,” are downright terrible. All of the songs have a vague “we’re cruising through Forks, Washington” faux-populist affectation while simultaneously attempting to capture what can only be described as the emotion that keeps chain store Hot Topic thriving. Because of their common mannerisms, songs by dissimilar bands seem to blend into one another.

Though the album is fundamentally boring and consistently mid-tempo, there are a few standout songs. Anya Marina’s “Satellite Heart” and Bon Iver and St. Vincent’s “Roslyn” are both twinkly, folk songs that seem more rooted in earnest emotion than the imitation of depression that seems to motivate the rest of the album. I think it is not a coincidence that both songs were not commissioned by those responsible for the movie.

Because I have not seen the movie and probably never will, I cannot tell you if this functions as an appropriate soundtrack to what I’ve heard is the worst installment of this vampire drama series. To be perfectly honest, I can think of only one reason why this album deserves to exist. While speaking to Pitchfork.com, Annie Clark of St. Vincent mentioned that she justifies her appearance on the album by thinking, “We were basically all suburban tweenagers at a point. I know for damn sure I was. I think if I had this soundtrack, if my 13-year-old self could’ve been exposed to Grizzly Bear, I probably would’ve been a little further along and probably better off.” I can support The Twilight Saga: New Moon soundtrack, regardless of how bad it is, if it expands the horizons of a few tweens. The popularity of Twilight proves that they need all the help they can get.

—Erin Vanderhoof

The first track and first single, “Straight Through My Heart,” tells you pretty much everything you need to know. It’s traditional, cheesy, BSB “love is so difficult and yet so amazing” lyrics laid over a humorously generic dance beat and what appear to be Atari laser effects.

The rest of the album follows a similar pattern, pairing classic boy band melodies and subject matter with uninspired attempts at modern production. The exception to this pattern is the truly horrifying “PDA,” which features the Boys delivering emotionally scarring lyrics like “We’d be at the club, the restaurant, the grocery store, or the movies/Kissing and touching with my hands all over your booty.”

What might be forgivable—or at least ignorable coming from a swaggering kid at Toad’s in his early twenties is downright disturbing from a group of thirty-somethings, half of whom are husbands and fathers. Considering that the Backstreet Boys’ musical strength—dare I say only asset—was decidedly the majestic power ballad, it’s odd that they’ve decided to go mostly up-tempo on This is Us. Even the slower, more romantic tracks like “Bigger” and “She’s a Dream” are backed up by Timbaland leftovers, and “Shattered,” a “man, love sucks” whinefest, starts off with a few seconds of violins before the lab-created handclaps kick in with a vengeance. They’ve tweaked their vocal style as well, adding some off-putting hiccups and a more “urban” approach to pronunciation, highlighted by the frequent use of the word “shawty” in “She’s a Dream.”

The title track includes some adventurous but painful falsetto moments and uncharacteristic slurring on the chorus. Of course, this last bit may be more the product of a chorus made up entirely of the words “this is us” repeated five million times than a specific artistic choice. We get it: If we didn’t think you were singing, we wouldn’t have bought the album.

This is Us is almost too easy to mock, but it isn’t the worst CD ever made. The songs are trite and musically uninteresting, but there are at least five songs in the current Top 40 that are even lamer and less imaginative. The music world just doesn’t really have a place for the Backstreet Boys anymore, and their efforts to fit in are awkward and uncomfortable. Four noticeably different voices singing a unified message of love feels weird now in a way it didn’t in 1999—and adding a plodding bass line doesn’t make an outdated style relevant. This is Us may be what the Backstreet Boys have become, but they are no longer a reflection of the rest of us.

—Hannah Cousins

After watching the Where the Wild Things Are trailer about a dozen times, I had irrevocably associated Arcade Fire with Spike Jonze’s newest effort. I figured the soundtrack would be a collection of indie singles, a prominent display of big names on the scene and a sampling of obscurer artists whose work fit the film’s feel. It would be a Garden State soundtrack for the 12-and-under crowd, indoctrinating a new generation with a slightly off-mainstream mantra (pigeonholing them into the “hipster tween” demographic for at least five years to come).

Despite my anticipation to see how Jonze would select his soundtrack, I was even more excited to discover that the soundtrack would be the work of Karen O, frontwoman for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The soundtrack is recorded under the name “Karen O and the Kids,” with “the Kids” being a slew of collaborators, including O’s Yeah Yeah Yeahs bandmates and Deerhunter/Atlas Sound powerhouse Bradford Cox. The true “Kids,” however, are like the wild things of the film, representations of inner children that fuel a playful and emotionally volatile album.

The album’s first track, “Igloo,” starts with Karen O’s childlike humming—both melancholy and dreamy—slowly picking up hope as the music rises. Although the song sees no true crescendo, the grade-school-music-class-esque ensemble of instruments—tambourine and toy piano, anyone?—promises playfulness to come. “All is Love” fulfills that promise. Beginning with Karen O’s enthusiastically yelled countdown, and peppered with choruses of cheers from children, the song rollicks and whistles through simple lyrics, easily sung by kids themselves. The youthful sing-along nature of the song may lure you into the false belief that this album is a children’s album, just as Spike Jonze may lure you into thinking that his movie is a children’s movie. (Let me assure you, the film can be terrifying. Please do not take your children. And please do not expect this to be a children’s album.)

“Capsize” proves this contradiction. While Karen O may avoid the titular matter only by enthusiastically spelling “C-A-P-S-I-Z-E!,” the song is nonetheless a depressing missive on an individual’s stifled efforts to flee from home, and his simultaneous disregard for the consequences of his actions and the emotional state of others. Not exactly kids’ fare. “Worried Shoes” is a beautiful but depressing reflection on a lifetime of regrets. While the playful tracks like “All is Love,” “Rumpus,” or “Heads Up” can be the most initially enjoyable, more somber numbers like “Worried Shoes,” “Hideaway,” and the brief instrumental interlude “Lost Fur” provide layered depth that makes the album worth listening to again and again—helping the film and its accompanying soundtrack to defy both genre and generation gaps.

Filled with simple lyrics and melodies, and fueled primarily by guitar and piano, the album expounds upon desolate subject matter, toying with the boundary between childhood and adulthood. Just as Jonze somehow proved that he could fit deep and frightening metaphors of the human condition into a PG-rated film, so does Karen O manage to pack an emotionally loaded set of songs into an album that could be marketed as a sing-a-long.

—Brannack MacLain