Thumbing My Way Back To Soundtracks

So there's a new movie coming out called Into The Wild, based on the book by Jon Krakauer about an adventurous young man who abandons his life as he knows it and goes out into the world "to live deliberately," as it were. The soundtrack is by Eddie Vedder - nine new songs and two covers (and, apparently, some iTunes bonus tracks).

Tonight after work, I toddled over to the Castleton Best Buy to see if they had the record and how many United States dollars they were demanding in exchange for one copy. Naturally, I ventured into the aisle containing soundtracks since it is, in fact, a soundtrack. No dice. Not even one of those plastic dividers labeled with the name of the picture.

How silly of me to have expected a soundtrack to be located with other soundtracks. What was I thinking? I had also read that this was being billed as Ed's first solo album (sort of like the soundtrack to The Graduate is thought of as a Simon & Garfunkel album - it is and it isn't), so I wandered down the aisle with the V artists. There seemed at that point not to be any dice anywhere in the store. Of course, I never go into Best Buy looking for My Chemical Romance records, Xbox games, or movies by Judd Apatow on DVD, so I'm usually behind in the count before I even step through the door.

Am I too idealistic? Is it really too much to ask to file a soundtrack with the rest of the soundtracks and not in the fucking Pearl Jam section (which is where you will find the soundtrack for Into The Wild at the Best Buy in Castleton)? Who are the people who are going to know about this record and actually think it's a Pearl Jam record? The band barely went gold with the most recent album, so it's pretty much just real fans of the band buying the stuff. Anyone who wants this soundtrack is going to know first that it's a soundtrack and second that it's Ed's first solo album.

I didn't buy it - went to the Castleton Borders instead to get a couple of books for Ryan and Heather as wedding gifts, and the latest edition of Best American Short Stories (guest-edited this year by Stephen King) for myself. The location of the Into The Wild soundtrack at this store? In the V section of Pop/Rock, filed as an Eddie Vedder solo album. Not entirely correct, but getting warmer.