what the hell is up with the music!?

Taste is subjective... but the actual soundtrack does fit the film. Watch it again and listen to the lyrics during each scene. Extremely apt song placement.

Well, send me a postcard from Paradise.

This is the sort of frustrating nonsense that pisses me off whenever I come onto these boards.

It's called contrast! Here it's used to add a very darkly humorous edge to various scenes and often make them all the more twisted and disturbing. It's supposed to make you feel uncomfortable. It's supposed to make you laugh a little, and then question whether you should be laughing. The music adds so much to this film, both thematically and technically. It's used to underscore the misogynist patriarchal mindset of Chris Cleek. It's used to get inside the heads of nearly every character and tie them together.

Try to imagine all of the information conveyed to during the "Distracted" sequence being conveyed half as effectively with just a regular "appropriate" score. It'd feel like just a jumble of disconnected scenes. We might not even realize their thematic connection. Granted, the title "Distracted" is a bit blunt, but the song itself is much less so. It smoothly intertwines every family member in that moment.

Try to imagine the scene where Chris Cleek finds "The Woman" with just an ordinary, boring, score that fits in the way that you think it should. For one thing, the black-humor tone of the film might not be so readily established, but on top of that, the sexual subtext of that scene would be lost. Chris's actions, then, would make much less sense. The memory of that song is actually quite haunting as the film continues and Cleek tries to pass off his intentions as some kind of family project. This is because "JH2" (anybody know what that means?) gives us an early window into his head. In the back of our heads, the sexual tone of that song sits, building dread of the inevitable rape scene.

In short, the soundtrack to this film does what few soundtracks are able to do. Rather than simply enhancing the film, it actively adds to the subtext, the tone and the story.

It's perfect.

i agree with the spanish anarchist!

having the subtitles on helps a lot -- the lyrics to each song can answer questions about what's going on in that scene. i imagine that's why they chose them. but the rape scene also wasn't nearly as shocking and violent as most in cinema.

i have to agree with a lot of these other answers though, what the hell is the "preferable" rape soundtrack?

Roger: "The internet is NOT going to be happy!"

most of the soundtrack was made by the same guy. I imagine the director didn't think they were absolutely perfect all the way through, maybe he's just doing someone he knows a favor and they're just "good enough"

The indie crap was absolutely brutal, I actually *beep* screamed that during the movie so that if any neighbors heard it they would know I was as aghast as them. Not that I have any neighbors with any sort of taste in music that I know, but just saying...
The electronic score, which I imagine was mostly engineered for the movie was actually brilliant. That a man who knows what he's doing.

The soundtrack was terrible and was just as bad as the movie. I had a feeling when watching this that the guy who played every song in the soundtrack was probably the little brother of the director or something like that. All of the songs were apparently recorded 'on site'. I don't care – the music was corny and had about the same creative merit of a thirteen-year-old trying to play every instrument on an album and sucking at everything. Sorry guy. I have a feeling that this board is being monitored by the film "staff". This guy sounded like a bad Fountains of Wayne cover band.

I completely agree and complained throughout this film about. Music sets a tone for a movie, and this movie took me out the moment several times.