TV Soundtrack

Music From The O.C.: Mix 5 is a sweet, brash and thoughtful mixtape-style compilation of songs from season three of the popular network TV show.

Some of the tracks are indie, some are major label; some are foreign, some are domestic; some are rock and some are pop, but all have that O.C. feel (evoking an attitude or emotion or underscoring a storyline) and all are newish, centering around 2005, the very year of its release.

The disc starts with a series of songs from European acts. It opens with a garage-flavored number from English male-female Britpop trio The Subways, whose debut full-length doesn't even come out until 2006.

It's followed by "Reason For Treason," a standout Manchester-influenced track from English quartet Kasabian's critically lauded 2004 debut album. It leads into a brand new song from the Shout Out Louds, an excellent indie fivesome from Sweden. The track, "Wish I Was Dead Pt. II," is a dreamy acoustic-electric indie-pop gem with a simple first-generation Casio beat and male-female vocals.

The disc returns to domestic shores for the next two tracks, the irreverent and playful "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House" by LCD Soundsystem, and the gorgeous indie-popper "Publish My Love" by San Francisco's Rogue Wave (from their second Sub Pop album). The sweet rocker features a killer hook, backbeat drums, acoustic guitar and electric guitar compressed like the Cocteau Twins. Lead singer/songwriter Zach Rogue brings it all home with his Ben Gibbard-esque vocals.

Painfully and wrongly under-famous band Of Montreal (actually from the South) checks in mid-way with a garage/indie pop gem tweaked with sunny psychedelia called "Requiem For O.M.M." O.C. soundtrack producers also include an album track ("Kids With Guns") from the long-awaited sophomore album by Gorillaz and another major label tune from England's Kaiser Chiefs -- a snot-punk rocker with '50s-rock piano under amped-up guitars and ironic background vocals that invoke the song's title, "Na Na Na Na Naah."

Already a great mix, the producers might just have saved the best for last, closing the album with Stars, Phantom Planet (an acoustic version of the show's theme song "California") and Imogen Heap.

Canadian quartet Stars' "Your Ex-Lover is Dead" is a Smiths-inspired chamber pop song featuring gentle string and horn arrangements and beautiful vocals from Amy Millan.

Speaking of beautiful vocals, the disc closes with England's Imogen Heap, a burgeoning phenom in the indie scene and for good reason. Her a cappella "Hide and Seek," featuring herself on background vocals processed through a vox humana, is reason enough to buy this CD alone. It will make you a fan of hers as surely as The O.C. already has.

By Todd Spencer