Various – The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie: Music from the Movie and More (Sire)

Kid flicks that appeal to both parents and kids are a rarity, and the same brand of TV shows are only slightly more tolerable. When some Hollywood goons noticed square yellow keyrings hanging from the rearview mirrors of a few college jokers, the execs realized that the SpongeBob movie had a rare potential to please the kiddies and be simultaneously hip as Hell.

Alright, some people got suckered into seeing it and surely, some people have been suckered into buying the soundtrack. But you’re smart, you guessed it, it’s half for the college crowd with tracks by the Flaming Lips, the Shins, Wilco, and Ween, and the kid/adult gap is strategically buffered with a short and semi-tolerable cut by the age-bracket-defying moneymaker Avril Lavigne. The rest is like using fine beach sand instead of ClearEyes.

Do yourself a favor: get the good songs from iTunes for $4.95 and put them on your iPod. You know which songs to get. Anyway, if you or your kid needs a SpongeBob fix, flip on the TV show. If your kid wants to get the soundtrack, just dig out something equally child-friendly, like Ween’s classic Chocolate and Cheese (just ignore the parental warning) and that will end it, hopefully for good.

Warning: SpongeBob apparently advocates tolerance toward homosexuality! Gasp…