Everyone who's ever been anywhere near independent music has heard the story: a music artist becomes fed up with record labels and "the system," so they decide to take the road less traveled. "Fuck the labels, fuck the system, we can be rock stars on our own," they holler. Then, one day, they look up from the dirty street corner they've been playing for the past seven years to see David Geffen driving by, lounging in his diamond-plated limo with the champagne-filled Jacuzzi in the back. Wiping the drool away from their mouths and counting the change that passerbys have dropped into their guitar case, they experience a moment of pure fucking insanity, wherein they whisper quietly to themselves, "You know, I can do that." So, a new independent record label is born and the uphill battle for the next Dave Matthews Band begins.

Well, in this case the record label, Fortune Records is very new, and the uphill battle for empiric dominance is going to be a damn near vertical climb. It's not that Fortune Records is a bad label, or run by business-retarded 12-year-olds or anything like that. The problem is that most successful independent bands already had some kind of cult following in place before their first album was released-- either spread through word of mouth or held over from their major label days. But most of the acts presented on Fortune Records' first compilation album, Fortune Cookies, have all the public name recognition of an obscure Shinto wind demon. You see, Fortune Records is drawing its first wave of artists from the San Francisco/Bay Area scene, where it makes its home. And while this kind of loyalty to your roots and this willingness to try out new acts may be admirable as all hell, no one outside of the Bay Area gives a rat's ass about these guys. If there's any justice in the world, Fortune Cookies will change all of that.

With a name like Fortune Cookies, the music critics' food analogies are going to fly fast and furious. Well, I'm a shameless hack, so here's mine:

[Ahem] "It may be called Fortune Cookies, but this album is no less than a full-on Chinese buffet-- a sumptuous musical feast complete with straight up indie rock, jangly folk pop, laid back hip-hop, beat-filled dance music, tender, dreamy ballads and even an instrumental bluegrass track that sounds like a song to drive cattle by."

With 16 tracks showcasing close to a dozen different musical styles, there's no simple way to define the record's "sound," but I will lazily write a short list of some of the standout cuts on the album. Children of the Fog's ode to a broken heart, "Altitude Sickness," is one of the smoothest, jazziest hip-hop tracks I've heard since Spearhead jumped on the scene (and promptly jumped back off) in the mid-90's. Fellow labelmates, Small Wonder offer a completely different sound with their heartfelt, beautiful ballad, "Weather Report," another album highlight. It slows the whole album down, showing you that the kids at Fortune have feelings, too-- they just want to turn down the lights, hold you tight and dance real slow. John Vanderslice, former frontman of MK Ultra, spreads his own kind of love with "Bill Gates Must Die," a dark, Unabomber-ish rant that, contrary to popular belief, did not have Microsoft scanning his e-mail and calling the cops to complain about him a few months ago.

Unfortunately, Fortune Records' best feet forward, 20 Minute Loop and label co-founder Jim Greer (the first artists to have albums released on the label) turn in sub-par performances, pulling two very different but equally unpleasant songs off of their respective albums. 20 Minute Loop's high-pitched "She Hated Dogs" sports a verse so irritating it makes the Barenaked Ladies' "One Week" sound like a lullaby, while Greer, whose Rover Songs sported its share of enjoyable tracks, must have been on crack when he picked the overly- syncopated, queasily melodic "What's That You Say" to represent his sound.

While there may not be much stylistic cohesion to all this, you have to admire how broad the Fortune Records musical palate is. Plus, the album is well put together, so none of the conflicting styles jar against one other too badly. But with any album this big, the quality is bound to jump up and down like a cardiogram readout. Overall, Fortune Cookies is an album that tries very hard to please the listener, put out by a label trying very hard to justify its own existence. Luckily for us, there's more quality music on this labor of love than not.

-Steven Byrd