t must have seemed like a good idea at the time. Get a bunch of hot rap artists like Kanye West, Chingy, Twista, and Fabolous together to do a soundtrack for the latest urban drama focusing on some of the very teens who listen to this music. A perfect synergy of soundtrack and film.

In practice, not so much.

First of all, some of the best tracks on the album aren't even in the film. This column gets its title from the excuse created by labels to put songs on a soundtrack for the sole purpose of pimping a new artist whether their music appears in the film or not. But here, some of the artists being left out of the mix are well-established. Kanye West, whose "Wouldn't You Like to Ride" (a collaboration with Common, Malik Yusef, and JV) is easily the best track on the CD, is arguably the hottest hip hop ticket today. And yet the song appears nowhere in the film.

Mack 10 isn't exactly a fresh face. I first heard him on the Bullworth soundtrack in '98. His work here with Da Hood, "Balla" is pure, old-school boasting. It would fit in perfectly when the team parties with some debutantes after winning a tournament. But, inexplicably, it doesn't.

So maybe the draw of putting established artists on a soundtrack for a film that doesn't actually use their songs is just that. If they could get a Puff Daddy song in there that didn't appear in the film, I'm sure they'd go for it.

There are, of course, tunes from lesser-known artists that also don't make the cut. And, generally, they're weaker efforts. Trey Songz' "About the Game" is certainly relevant, but far too cheesy to make an impact. LeToya's "What Love Can Do" is just as generic as the title implies. CzarNok's "Beauty Queen" is actually pretty good and, like the aforementioned "Balla" would fit in nicely with the party scene, but for some reason it's left out.

The reverse is true as well. Plenty of good songs, like LL Cool J's "Headsprung," are in the film but never make it to the soundtrack. This seems odd when you consider that one of the production companies behind the movie is MTV Films, and if anybody could swing a license from an established artist, you'd imagine it'd be them. But the music/film business is far more complicated, apparently, than all that.

Finally, we come to songs that are both in the film and on the soundtrack. Taken as a whole, it's not a bad batch. Nine out of the fourteen tunes on the CD (roughly 64%, if you're keeping score). The album starts off strong, with four solid jams. Red CafÇ opens with "All Night Long," a rough and tumble groove with pipe organ arpeggios in the mix. It effectively scores the early practices of the team, as they learn the fundamentals.

"No Need for Conversation," from Fabolous follows. Though it lacks the visceral bite of "Breathe," one of his recent hits, it's still a serviceable background track for Coach Carter's son's arrival at a new school.

Remember how two of the tracks not in the film would have been perfect in the party scene? Well, there are a few that actually do work there. One of them is "Professional," delivered with rapid-fire precision by Chingy, which resonates so well in part because it's as much about basketball as it is about getting laid and in part because the chorus ("Yes, I'm a winner") echoes the coach's doubts about what turning his team into winners has really wrought.

Ciara's "Roll Wit' You" also scores the background of this party. It's as if they tried to squeeze as many contractual obligations as possible into one scene. This one sounds like nothing so much as a failed attempt to better Aaliyah's "Try Again" from the superior "Romeo Must Die" soundtrack (Which also had Mack 10. Does he just do soundtracks now?). "This One" by Ak'Sent, also scores the party, which is unfortunate, since the swervy bounce of this track comes off like the second coming of Missy Elliot and deserves a more prominent role.

A motley assortment rounds out the rest of the album. The Game's gritty, moody "Southside" provides an appropriate atmosphere for requisite gangmember character Timo to meet up with his crack boss. "Your Love (Is the Greatest Drug I've Ever Known)" by Van Hunt scores a make-out session between Ashanti's character and her man which is thankfully interrupted by the cries of her baby niece, who perhaps realizes how annoyingly sappy the tune is.

Ashanti (who, strangely, doesn't appear on the soundtrack) gets more theme music while hanging with her crew, this time from St. Lunatics who redo Prince's "Sign O' the Times" as "Time." And by "redo," I mean, "rip off the melody while failing to improve upon the original in any way."

The film closes with "Hope," a sort of hip hop "I'd Like to Teach the World To Sing" with Twista and Faith Evans at the helm. Twista's high velocity vocals make this feel a little bit fresher than that sounds, but with lyrics like "And in the famous words of Mr. King 'Why can't we all just get along?'" that doesn't last long. It's a little disheartening when "Mr. King" refers to Rodney instead of Martin Luther.

None of this really diminishes the impact of the film Coach Carter. In fact, the movie is stronger when the soundtrack isn't pumping. Samuel L. Jackson's speeches are what really make the experience, and they usually go un-scored. If you can imagine Jules from Pulp Fiction coaching high school basketball, you'll get the picture. You'll also see why they should have put some of those speeches on the soundtrack, the same way snippets of dialogue make their way onto the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. As it is, we'll have to settle for not quite three-quarters of music from Coach Carter.