"Basketball Diaries" Original Motion Picture Soundtrack - Classic or Dud

Like I may have mentioned, my wife and I in the very slow process of moving stuff from one apartment to another. In any event, by this point, ninety percent of our CD collection now resides in the new place, while all we're left with here in the old place are the VARIOUS ARTISTS discs....including soundtracks. I have the day off, and since it's too snowy and slippery outside to do any moving today, I'm sequestered inside. Thumbing though the soundtracks, I pulled out this disc from 1995.

This thread isn't so much about the film -- a somewhat abortive take on Jim Carroll's confessinal classic of drug abuse and juvenile delinquency starring a pre-"Titanic" Leo DeCaprio. The soundtrack album vainly tries to reconcile Jim Carroll's punk/alternative cred with a hodgepodge of diverse tracks, largely from 90's artists --- regardless of the fact that the book (and likewise the film) was set in the 60's. There is the odd track from the period -- specifically "Riders on the Storm" by the Doors, but the rest is a mixed bag. That said, there are some decent moments here, specifically "Coming Right Along" by the Posies -- a languid and sombre piece featuring some strikingly spartan guitars -- and "Strawberry Wine" by someone called Massive Internal Complications, which acts as an equally narcotic companion piece to the Posies track. Elsewhere, you've got some vintage Jim Carroll Band ("People Who Died," naturally) and a needless re-recording of "Catholic Boy"....inexplicably featuring Pearl Jam (during their weird transition from public eye to self-imposed commercial exile). The Cult weigh in with the chunky "Star," easily the finest track from their dead-on-arrival eponymous re-invention album that eventually stalled the band for half a decade. Apart from a PJ Harvey track which doesn't mesh with the film's theme in the slightest, the rest is largely filler (Green Apple Quickstep? A dour track by a solo Flea? Some lost Soundgarden throwaway b-side-shouldabeen called "Blind Dogs"), sprinkled with patchs of Carroll reading from the original text.

Like I said, the movie was largely forgettable, but as a collection of music, it's both compelling and frustrating. What say you?