13 Most Beautiful: Songs For Andy Warhol's Screen Tests

Renowned pop artist Andy Warhol swapped canvas for celluloid and made 13 short black-and-white silent films between 1964 and 1966, all of which followed a single subject (person), usually within the confines of his Factory studio. Luna veterans Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips were commissioned by the Warhol Museum to provide a soundtrack for the film, and the resulting two-disc set, 13 Most Beautiful: Songs for Andy Warhol's Screen Tests collects all of those pieces, along with a handful of remixes. Tapping one third of the late-'80s pop outfit Galaxie 500 was a no-brainer, as Wareham’s made a career out of building dreamy, minimalist, Velvet Underground-style jams for over 20 years, and instrumental cuts like “Silver Factory Theme” and “Herringbone Tweed” feel like audio postcards of the late-'60s Factory scene. Phillips’ sexy, plain-jane voice dutifully echoes Nico on a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Keep It with Mine,” Wareham’s “It Don't Rain in Beverly Hills” (for the Edie Sedgwick screen test) rolls down the road on a foundation of spacy beats and blips, and a rousing take on the Velvets’ “I'm Not a Young Man Anymore” feels both sad and triumphant. 13 Most Beautiful ends fittingly with the languid “Sweet Jane” and the Paul America-inspired “Teenage Lightning (And Lonely Highways)”. ~ James Christopher Monger