Cars: Lightning McQueen's Fast Tracks  (Audio CD) 
by Disney

Every once in a while, Disney pairs a score-heavy soundtrack to a major film with something a little lighter. Cars doesn't fit the bill--its soundtrack is star-studded (John Mayer, Sheryl Crow, James Taylor) and its score, by Randy Newman, is about as accessible as they come. So chalk up Fast Tracks--Lightning McQueen's lighthearted and wholly likable companion piece to Cars: The Soundtrack--to the outsized persona with which his creators gifted him. McQueen, a pedal-to-the-metal kind of character, has tunes coming out his mighty tailpipe: between Gunnar Nelson's "Rocking Little Roadster," Joy Lynn White's "You Can't Catch Me," and Kevin Montgomery's earnest, dust-coated cover of Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again," he takes classic rock, rockabilly, and straight-up country for a spin; elsewhere, pop, folk, and blues fasten their seatbelts. It's a slightly twang-heavy melange, but McQueen rotates his sounds as reliably as his tires--credit him (or, more accurately, the corporate folks who keep his engines running) with concocting a roll-down-the-windows-and-shout worthy soundtrack of his own. --Tammy La Gorce