Lost Highway Soundtrack CD

"The Perfect Drug" was nominated for a 1998 Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance.

While famous rockers may pilfer much of the spotlight on the soundtrack to director David Lynch's LOST HIGHWAY, the album's true stars are the score composers who gave birth to the noir-ish sense of symphonic dread that emanates from its every pore. Longtime Lynch collaborator Angelo Badalamenti's pieces veer from smoky free-jazz roars to amorphous quasi-dubs. Barry Adamson contributes a series of Tom Waits-like moments that can best be described as haunted marching-band music. And soundtrack producer Trent Reznor...well, you know his sense of the world well enough to see that he's a perfect musical fit for Lynch's darkly-psychotic-in-the-corners worldview.

Within such a thematically unified context, the contributions of the famous rockers (Smashing Pumpkins, David Bowie, Marilyn Manson, Reznor's Nine Inch Nails, others) could have either added a voice to the darkness, or ruined the mood altogether. Thankfully, under Reznor's strong-arm guidance, the stars (particularly the drum-machine-driven Pumpkins and drum-and-bass-driven Bowie) go right for the dark side.

Personnel: Lou Reed (vocals, guitar); Samuel Richards (guitar); Bob Sheppard (saxophone); Ronald Brown, Henry Kranen (baritone saxophone); Norris Webb (organ); Robert Mueller, Angelo Badalamenti (keyboards); Andrew Barrett (synthesizer); Chris Vrenna (drums, programming); Danny Lohner, Ralph Penland, Graham Hawthorne (drums); David Lynch (percussion).

Audio Mixers: Neil Perry; Alan Moulder; Sean Beavan; Trent Reznor; Billy Corgan.

Illustrator: Kim Wexman.

Photographer: Suzanne Tenner.

Arranger: Trent Reznor.Entertainment Weekly (3/7/97, p.67) - "...Industrial pretty boy/soundtrack architect Trent Reznor skillfully balances fresh salvos by Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, and the Smashing Pumpkins with...noir soundscapes....Even the most discerning listener won't be bored." - Rating: A