See the movie! Hear the soundtrack! Buy the bed spread! Well, there aren’t any bed spreads for the movie Kids and if there were, the sales wouldn’t even come close to Star Wars sheets. What could sell about Kids (besides the movie, which I haven’t yet seen) is the soundtrack.

For once in the recent history of film, the soundtrack is remarkable instead of passable. The soundtrack’s music isn’t a bunch of songs by popular groups that just happen to work as background music.

The music of Kids is undoubtedly there for a thematic purpose. One doesn’t need to have seen the film to figure out that much. The coherence runs deeper than following a Kate Bush song with a Bush song. The majority of the songs on the album are courtesy of Lou Barlow’s Folk Implosion project.

What Barlow and associate John Davis do is anything but folk. The Folk Implosion specialty is dub American style. Forget lame raps, wailing divas and thin, watery beats. Folk Implosion is more like the wise, intellectual club regular with a drink in the hand than the flamboyantly rhythmless style-boy under the black lights with glitter and big pants. The listener is provided with the deep, gritty rhythms of “Nothing Gonna Stop,” “Simean Groove” and other joints to entice them into the album’s web.

What isn’t from Folk Implosion is more varied, but still a piece of the ominous or aloof veins of the album. Daniel Johnston provides “Casper” and whiny 4-track stop of “Casper the Friendly Ghost” (no relation). Slint’s “Good Morning Captain” is a tone deaf bee-bop jazz romp turned indie rock project and it works well.

A good part of a film’s effectiveness is music, and the Kids soundtrack is a very effective accessory.

Where accessories are concerned, British men in rock (and some American guys, too) seem have the whole mod thing happening. Looking like a poorly drawn Japanimation character is the rave, mix and (mis)match is the game and being in a band tops it off. This is where Menswe@r’s nuisance comes in. They’re British, they’re mod, they look like Keop from “Battle of the Planets.” Well, one guy looks like he’s from Suede and another from Silverchair.

The music is similar to the pop styles that have been coming from Britain. The attitude is the same: “We’re going to be IT!” It’s a bit big-headed in the way of confidence, but it sure beats the “We don’t care what you think!” gripe that is prevalent in American rock. Menswe@r has a mission, and it includes a rabid symbiosis between fan satisfaction and band goals.

Instead of shooting themselves in the foot with alienation, the Menswe@r men take nuisance and start being delightfully bratty. They rail on bubbleheads (“Little Miss Pinpoint Eyes”) and rock star living (“Stardust”) with equal vigor. They cover two sides of relationships from the ex-lover turned next door neighbor (“Around You Again”) to the ironing out of a good thing (“Piece of Me”).

Menswe@r avoids living up to the album’s name with catchy riffs, smart aleck lyrics and an aura that’s most like The Banana Splits after having experienced the real world for a while. They may be show horses, but they’ve already bucked off and trampled the stuffy guy in the bowler.

When it comes to conjuring spirits of pop gone by, Kim Deal’s latest band du jour is simple pop to the core. As The Amps’ Tammy Ampersand, Deal leaves The Breeders behind and rolls up with Pacer. The album is similar to the car, where the attractiveness is of a stuff that’s beneath the stockiness and bubble windows. It’s a bit more visceral and undefined.

Breeders fans may be disappointed, and Pixies fans maybe moreso, just because The Amps scream “Kim Deal” without hearkening back to either group. Her vocals are raspy and light. The sound hints at low-fi enough to justify the kinship with Sonic Youth and Guided by Voices. The largest positive is that Deal has the grace to know when to say when.

The simplicity is the only gimmick to the album. None of the songs really stand out which makes the album pretty linear. The melodies and arrangements could have easily come from the cartoon rock vaults, so hearing them do a version of “Sugar Sugar” wouldn’t have been a surprise at all. If Frank Black’s solo stuff left you with a headache (Ha! I kill me!), give The Amps listen. It purrs like the frumpy little automotive namesake cruising the loop. Leave Wayne Campbell out of it.