Rereleased two decades after the motion picture debuted, the soundtrack to the movie version of America's first "tribal love-rock musical," Hair, holds up amazingly well. Performances by Treat Williams ("I Got Life"), Beverly D'Angelo ("Good Morning Starshine"), and Nell Carter ("Abie Baby" and "White Boys") are as uproarious as ever, while Cheryl Barnes's "Easy to Be Hard" remains a paralyzing gospel number. The timing could not have been better, as many trends in late-'90s music retread the musical's funk bass and evangelical vocal arrangements. But beyond a lucky coincidence, the rerelease of the music comes at a time when the spoiled offspring of the original Woodstock generation returns to the farm rioting, destroying property, and filling arrest dockets with names. If nothing else, the CD is a glorious reminder of a time when social awareness, brotherly love, and mind expansion were mantras, not marketing rhetoric on the sides of soda bottles. --Beth Massa
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