Mark Knopfler - Metroland (1998)

Metroland is what locals call the suburbs surrounding London's Metro rail system. It's also novelist Julian Barnes's metaphor for middle-class complacency, the refuge the film's Christian Bale somehow finds himself in by the late '70s after a hedonistic '60s Parisian interlude spent rebelling against traditional mores. Those are also the geographic and chronological poles Mark Knopfler's score orbits, from wistful title music that edges perilously close to Kenny G-Land to playfully cheesy, tongue-in-cheek cocktail jazz and riff-rock. Along the way Knopfler also pays homage to gypsy jazz-guitar great Django Reinhardt (who's also gratifyingly represented here by two vintage cuts, "Blues Clair" and "Minor Swing") as well as serving up the quiet, melodic melancholy familiar to admirers of Local Hero and Cal. The balance of the collection is devoted to a motley collection of period-pop (The Stranglers' droll "Peaches," Hot Chocolate's "So You Win Again," Elvis Costello's breakthrough "Alison," Knopfler's own "Sultans of Swing," and Francoise Hardy's "Tous les Garcons et les Filles"). Knopfler's done stronger work (perhaps he's rusty; this is just his second score of the '90s), but the album's shaggy eclecticism has its charms nonetheless. --Jerry McCulley