I Am Sam Soundtrack

So in my alphabetically ordered list of artists, the next one was Aimee Mann and Michael Penn singing Two of Us on the soundtrack for I am Sam (starring Sean Penn, Michelle Pfeiffer and Dakota FannningMcCreepy). The soundtrack (obviously) features a bunch of artists, all covering Beatles songs. I KNOW, but seriously it's kind of good (well parts of it) and I want to mention those parts as well as the bad bits because that's fun too. But just as a disclaimer, I do not think any of these are even half as good as the originals.

So, this song that starts the whole thing off is actually good. I don't know who Michael Penn is and I've only kind of vaguely heard of Aimmimiieeei Mann (and I associate her with Sarah Mclaughlinspelling? and the like) but this is a bouncy cheery cover, really a fluffier version of the original. Ben Folds covers Golden Slumbers, which is just sort of okay. Ben Harper does Strawberry Fields and it it's rather poignant but I love the original so so so much that this one bothers me. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is done by the Black Crowes and I don't like it just because Chris Robinson's voice kind of bugs me sometimes and it sounds like the whole band is trying way too hard in general.

I swear though, some of these are good.

Like Chocolate Genius (whoever he/they/it is) doing Julia in a smoother but still kind of haunting way. And Eddie Vedder doing You've Got to Hide Your Love Away, mostly just because I love his voice and also because his guitar is so barebones and he sounds a bit like John.

Revolution (Grandaddy) is terrible, whiney. We Can Work It Out (Heather Nova) is decent, similar to the original except for the vocals. The Vines cover I'm Only Sleeping, which sounds nice but is really nothing special.

There are other tracks that I don't really think are worth mentioning, not because they are particularly bad, but just because there's nothing of real note going on. They are:
Help - Howie Day
Let It Be - Nick Cave
Nowhere Man - Paul Westerberg
Across the Universe - Rufus Wainwright
Blackbird - Sarah McLachlan (there's the spelling)
Mother Nature's Son - Sheryl Crow (I really really do not like her not even a little bit and I'm not sure why)
Don't Le Me Down - Stereophonics
I'm Looking Through You - The Wallflowers