With lots of trumpet, piano and tambourine, the soundtrack to the new movie The Commitments keeps in tradition with music from the 1950s and 1960s.

It has all the heart and spunk of the great Motown hits, but something is missing in this 45-minute long walk down memory lane.

What it lacks is authenticity, a major ingredient that causes the album to just miss its mark.

While the market has been overrun with remakes and revivals of favorites oldies for movies, the Motown sound recreated on this album won't break any sales records.

Classics like Otis Redding's "Try a Little Tenderness," and "In the Midnight Hour" are well done, but a Motown classic sung by a white actor who wasn't a singer to begin with just can't get that soulful, heavy-duty sound that made the originals famous.

The album does have its merits. Instruments like piano, saxophone and drums are refreshing to listen to compared with the electronically processed music that runs rampant today. And Otis Redding, Mary Wells and Wilson Pickett are a few of the Motown masters that lend a musical hand to give the soundtrack some credibility.

Many of the other tunes, however, are done a la Blues Brothers style, which is great for partying, but makes you want to go see The Blues Brothers, not The Commitments.

The soundtrack's success could ultimately depend on the movie. Maybe the film's action will give whole new meaning to the soundtrack. After all, could the Righteous Brothers' "Unchained Melody" ever be the same after seeing Ghost?

As it stands however, the soundtrack to The Commitments is something better borrowed from a friend.

Save the money to buy tickets to the movie (if it ever comes to State College, that is).