Various ArtistsTransformersReview

In time-honoured tradition, this soundtrack for the 2007 summer blockbuster contains “music from and inspired by” Transformers and if it’s not quite as much fun as, say, last summer’s Snakes On A Plane collection, it’s nevertheless a creditable clutch of new rock, boasting work by, among others, Linkin Park and the Smashing Pumpkins. But rather than drift into chin-stroking muso reveries on these latest promotional placements, I have gone direct to the movie’s target market and asked my seven-year-old son what he thought of the various musical tributes. Take it away, Ben Nelson…

“Oh, Transformers. Good,” he says, and so 92 per cent of the tracks prove to be, with only Goo Goo Dolls’ rock ballad, “Before It’s Too Late” causing active pain. “It’s so slow”, says Ben. “Can you please stop it now. I don’t like anything about it.” Linkin Park’s opener sets the trend for the most of the rest of the tracklist, being, apparently, “Good, but not mega,” the g-word also being applied to, variously, Disturbed, Him and Idiot Pilot, although Armor for Sleep proves suspenseful as Ben insists “I might like it, I might not like it,” before revealing that he has made his decision: “It’s good.” The Used, unlike Disturbed, are dismissed as “Too rocking”, while the token hip-hop track by Styles of Beyond, while also good, causes momentary alarm as Ben confesses “I’m gonna faint with all this music!”

"Taking Back Sunday" also buck the trend by being “Very very good,” but Julien-K’s metal-dance hybrid “Technical Difficulties” raises the bar: “Mega,” says Ben, placing this track third, behind Mutemath’s take on the Transformers’ theme (“This is it. Mega”) and Smashing Pumpkins, whose “Doomsday Clock” is “Very very good. Mega. Nothing can beat it.”

But would Ben buy the album? “Yes” Rather than a game or DVD? “I would buy a game or DVD. But this is very good. It’s mega.”