Cars [Original Soundtrack]

1	Real Gone / Sheryl Crow 3:21
2	Route 66 / Chuck Berry 2:51
3	Life Is a Highway / Rascal Flatts 4:36
4	Behind the Clouds / Brad Paisley 4:08
5	Our Town / James Taylor 4:07
6	Sh-Boom / Yes 2:25
7	Route 66 / John Mayer 3:24
8	Find Yourself / Brad Paisley 4:11
9	Opening Race 2:04
10	McQueen's Lost 2:28
11	My Heart Would Know / Hank Williams 2:26
12	Bessie 0:58
13	Dirt Is Different 1:27
14	New Road 1:17
15	Tractor Tipping 1:21
16	McQueen and Sally 2:00
17	Goodbye 2:42
18	Pre-Race Pageantry 1:30
19	The Piston Cup 1:52
20	The Big Race 3:09

Barnes & Noble

Disney's latest heart-warmer replaces the anthropomorphic playthings of Toy Story with humanized automobiles -- but it retains the careful balance of good-time pop and gently rollicking, family-friendly rock 'n' roll that made for such an enjoyable soundtrack. Cars relies a bit more on big names and familiar tunes than its Pixar-ish predecessors, but those elements are conjoined in ways that aren't entirely expected. Country kingpins Rascal Flatts, for instance, are called upon to retool Tom Cochrane's "Life Is a Highway" -- a song that takes well to its relocation to Nashville's interstate -- while John Mayer tries his hand at updating "Route 66." Mayer does a credible job, offering an appealing rendition that's practically bursting with eagerness; but he can't quite manage to outstrip Chuck Berry's original (a fact that's hard to ignore, since the Berry version is also presented here). Sheryl Crow's "Real Gone" easily stamps itself as the best of the disc's freshly minted songs, thanks to the singer's playful, coquettish delivery, but the real treat is Randy Newman's score, which takes up the last half the disc. Admittedly, incidental music is usually just that, but Newman packs these ten pieces with enough offbeat instrumentation and stylistic winks to make them worth going back to again and again -- especially for those whose musical diet is sorely lacking in bluegrass tuba workouts. David Sprague

All Music Guide

With a track listing that's roughly half rock, country, and pop songs and half Randy Newman's score, the Cars soundtrack is probably the least inspired collection of music to support a Pixar film. However, that's only in comparison to the brilliant soundtracks to their other movies -- especially Finding Nemo and The Incredibles. Both the pop music and score for Cars fit the film perfectly, and neither is totally predictable. Indeed, the biggest surprise may be the soundtrack's opening salvo, Sheryl Crow's "Real Gone." With a stomping beat and driving (no pun intended) riff that echoes the Who's "I'm Free," this is the most fun her music has been in years. As good as she is at the thoughtful, mellow ballads that made up Wildflower, she's truly incandescent as a smart but happy-go-lucky rock chick. There's also a '50s undercurrent to the soundtrack, nodding to the fact that many of the characters in the film are cars designed during that decade, including a 1959 Impala and a 1959 Fiat 500. The Chords' "Sh-Boom" and Chuck Berry's "Route 66" add a sweetly nostalgic feel to the album (later on, John Mayer contributes a blandly slick version of "Route 66" that could appear on virtually any soundtrack). The soundtrack also ties in the film's NASCAR motif with country songs like Rascal Flatts' version of "Life Is a Highway," which sounds like a slightly twangier take on Tom Cochrane's smash hit, and Brad Paisley's "Behind the Clouds," a sweet, affable, traditional country song that is one of Cars' highlights. Newman's score, meanwhile, follows in the tradition of his Toy Story and A Bug's Life work, translating his witty musical style into orchestral pieces that are rooted in traditional film music but never sound stuffy. "Opening Race" alternates between brass fanfares and revved-up guitar riffs, while the thrilling strings on "McQueen's Lost" and "Dirt Is Different" suggest curving roads and wide-open landscapes. And as always, the whimsical love theme "McQueen and Sally" and self-explanatory "Goodbye" show that Newman is still capable of being sentimental without being schmaltzy. Even though a soundtrack that consisted entirely of Newman's pieces and songs would be more in keeping with Pixar tradition, Cars does a good job of balancing its pop and score elements. Heather Phares