Can I lecture you thirteen year olds for a moment? This isn't an anti-sex or drug talk, so don't get scared. This is a good talk.

You know those movie soundtracks you've been buying lately? You may not realize this, but most of the bands on these soundtracks are pulling a George Costanza. Remember when George left behind his hat to get a second date out of a girl? Well, the bands on movie soundtracks will fuck with you like that, too.

Take Smash Mouth, for instance. "Walking on the Sun" is the product of a one- hit wonder. You know it and I know it, but some asshole in charge of a movie soundtrack doesn't know it. And so, there they'll go-- covering some saccharine 1970s love song in the hopes that Jennifer Love Hewitt's breasts will linger in the memory after they leave the flick and hit the record store. "Walking on the Sun" was the hat; the cover is an excuse for Smash Mouth to come back for another chance. (By the way boys, the answer is no.)

Not that I mean to pick on Smash Mouth. Shit, every movie soundtrack seems to be stacked around covers by bands we won't be paying attention to next year, much less many years down the road. So when Rykodisc went out of their way to reissue a bunch of soundtracks from the '60s and '70s, they gave hope to the future of the soundtrack as well. I hope somebody out there in Hollywood is listening, because if there were more guys like Quincy Jones writing authentic, original scores, soundtracks wouldn't be pulling this cover and b-side bullshit anymore.

So here are two by Quincy, which also feature guys like Ray Charles, Billy "Get Back" Preston, flutist Roland Kirk, and Glen Travis Campbell creating a complete score from scratch for the classic "In the Heat of the Night." Charles' title cut sets the sultry mood-- a bucket of sweat left on a Georgia porch for Old Man Cracker. Jones uses a whole orchestra for most of the music, folding his much- copied '60s noir sound in half and making it doubly fat. Kirk's growling flute is especially awesome, coming off as equally spooky and sexy. This section of the disc also gets bonus points for Glen Campbell's silly country tune, "Bowlegged Polly."

They Call Me Mister Tibbs is a more swaggering, urban score. The main title theme is good ol' fashioned San Francisco car chase music; the rest of the cuts licks a seedy woman in unseen places. What does that mean? Don't know at all. But if you ask me if I feel funky, the only answer to shoot out the old mouth hole is gonna be "sho' 'nuff!" And damn right. I'll bet you Can't Hardly Wait to buy this disc if you're not out seeing gramatically incorrect films with lesser soundtracks.

-Jason Josephes