By Jon Brion, 2002

By turns bold, sentimental, and decidedly loopy, director Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love has perceptively been described as a classic MGM musical without the songs. Which isn't to say it lacks for music; Jon Brion's glorious, stylistically baroque score matches Anderson's cinematic verve at every turn. Brion variously revives vintage Hawaiian pop-kitsch and Conway Twitty at his early Elvis-clone angstiest, and perfectly recasts Shelly Duvall's determined/desperate reading of "He Really Needs Me" from Harry Nilsson's underappreciated Popeye score as one of his major romantic themes; codependents need love, too.

But the major touchstone for Brion's instrumental underscore is the elusive Reprise Records sound of the late '60s/early '70s, with arrangements that seem lingering homages to Brian Wilson's Smile, Van Dyke Parks's Song Cycle, and Randy Newman's Sail Away. The composer's own self-performed pop-waltz of a melancholy love song, "Here We Go," echoes nothing less than the Beatles in their Rubber Soul/Revolver prime; it was even recorded in their old Abbey Road studio and seems to coax musical ghosts from the very walls. It's no mean feat to be both smart and sentimental, but Brion's pulled it off handsomely here on this, the best soundtrack these ears savored in 2002.

--Jerry McCulley

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