Dig These Discs :: Sex and the City, Volume 2; Stars & Garters

"Sex and the City, the Movie" had such a successful soundtrack that a sequel's been released that will likely please the inner-Carrie in you. The band Muy Cansando evokes the styles of the early 1990s with their CD "Stars and Garters." Here are our reviews:

Sex and the City: Volume 2, Various Artists

If the mission of a good soundtrack is to conjure images and moments from the source material, Sex and the City, Volume 2 is an unbridled success. Without equivocation, the compilers of this set managed to capture the dichotomy of the show with surprising accuracy.

The opening tracks are infused with a metropolitan, uptown club scene vibe positioned to make any girls-night-out mixtape with their breathy vocals and bumping synth beats. You could sip a cosmo and have a moment in a she-she new club that your sex-crazed, in-the-know friend dragged you to. But as the disc goes on, the temperature changes from club-hopping to car-singing with poppy, bubbly tracks from Estelle, Mutya Buena, and Elijah Kelley. And finally, the album splashes down into soft lighting and a large glass of wine with silky smooth tracks from Amy Winehouse and Allison Moorer. Like any good night out,

"Sex and the City, Volume 2" captures the amped up dance out, the euphoric, half-drunken ride home and the soft, incense-and-candle vibe to settle into bed. This compilation is mood music of the highest order; fulfilling and fabulous. Just like the show of same name, "Sex and the City, Volume 2" has the highs and the lows, the soft and the loud, the Miranda, the Charlotte, the Samantha and the Carrie. In short, something for everyone.

Stars and Garters, Muy Cansado

They say revivals take place 20 years in advance. And looking at clothing and music choices in America's cities today, it is not hard to see shades of the late 80's cropping up everywhere. But with 2010 right around the corner, Muy Cansado is sitting pretty, well ahead of the curve and poised to lead us into the early-to-mid 90's post-punk, grunge revival. Mixing elements of every popular style the most apathetic decade had to offer, Muy Cansado's lo-fi vocals and simple intonation at times channels the Pixies, the Lemonheads, Dinosaur Jr. and the Gin Blossoms. And their amped up harmonies and frenetic pace reminds of Alt-Country bands like Uncle Tupelo, the Replacements and Old97's.

Amazingly, critics and malcontented former musicians (often one and the same) seem to carry a torch for the music of the early-to-mid nineties as being stripped of pretension, subtext or irony. But anyone who is being honest with themselves knows that many radio favorites of the 90's were simply glorified bar bands with a few catchy hooks sprinkled among clich?d melodies and three-chord-changes. And while that may well be the case, no one seems to care. After all, the early 90's took place 20 years after the early 70's, an era completely infatuated with a lack of pretension; a decade where bands like Black Sabbath and the Grateful Dead were playing the same chords and making it seem like they were each breaking new ground. Back then, the hook was all that mattered. If you could play it in a bar and people wouldn't get pissed, it stuck. Stars and Garters is not a good album in the sense that it breaks new ground or introduces the listener to a new style. But if you were in a bar and this band were playing, you might ask them what they are doing in a dive like this. You might buy their CD. And you might be singing the hooks and tapping your foot on the drive home.