Osmosis Jones: Music From The Motion Picture is an assortment of mostly hip-hop and R&B, with a bit of rock thrown in for effect.  The hip-hop's not the most hardcore demonstration of raw mic skillz you'll ever hear, but it's stylish and does the job.

The soundtrack has a number of enjoyable tracks.  The production style is in many cases along the same zany, upbeat character as the film.  There are, however, some more soulful songs as well.

As is often the case with motion picture soundtracks, the connection between a lot of the music and the film is a bit contrived.  There are some places, though, where the connection is more concrete, and in these places the biological references are clever, as with the film itself.

St. Lunatics open Osmosis Jones: Music From The Motion Picture with the catchy, comical beat and (pardon the pun) somewhat infectious hook of “Summer In The City.”

I'm rarely impressed by the southern rap style, but in “Big Ball,” it's actually rather effective.  It's not the tightest rap like you might expect out of, say, Busta Rhymes, but it's a good club banger.  Drama raps in a gritty voice, which, in this song, he modulates fittingly.  This is one of his better tracks.

Solange declares her contradiction to conformity in “Solo Star.”  It's an upbeat song whose vocals are initially basic, but become quite a bit more expressive in places.  Solange's vocals bear some resemblance to those of her sister, Beyoncé.

Next, Brandy kills it with the at-once moody and joyful “Open.”  Where's the Grammy for this one??  This is an amazing song that I'd venture to say is possibly even better than much of her album material.

The beat is catchy, yet doesn't compete with Brandy's vocals at all, which is more than can be said for many on her later albums, particularly in Full Moon (the album).

In some places, the vocals are heavily layered into a syrupy effect that is typical of Afrodisiac.  It is pretty in a way, but at the same time, you want to hear more “clean” vocals.  In “Open,” you get a good helping of that, too, and the combination is extremely effective.

This soundtrack would be worth its price even were “Open” the only song on it.

Craig David has the misfortune of his song playing after “Open,” which inevitably overshadows it.  In all fairness, “Fill Me In (Part 2)” is a nice song too, with smooth vocals.

R. Kelly slows it down with “I Believe,” an uplifting song.  Now, is the song dedicated to a woman, or to America?  I'll let you decide.

The first thing I have to say about “Cool, Daddy Cool” is that I really don't appreciate the term “hoe,” or any other disparaging to women.  Of course, if I couldn't overlook this, that'd pretty much preclude my listening to hip-hop, unfortunately.

That point aside, “Cool, Daddy Cool” is best described by two words: cute and annoying.  (That's my opinion, for what it's worth.)

“Turn It Out” is cute, not annoying (well, at least not if you don't play it a million times), and is better-connected to the film than most of the songs on the soundtrack.

Trick Daddy and The Slip-N-Slide Express “Take It To Da House,” dropping some aight rhymes over a jazzy beat.

In “Just In Case,” Nivea very expressively shows serious interest in a man already taken, over a heavy beat with sinister undertones.

“Just In Case” sounds like it was subjected to too much dynamics compression.  Out of curiosity, I tested the power levels on various songs on the soundtrack, and found them all to be fairly similar.  In fact, “Open” was technically a bit louder than “Just In Case;” and yet, “Just In Case” sounds quite screwed up by the compression, whereas in “Open” and the others, the compression isn't objectionable.

For those not familiar with dynamics compression, it's a process used (more extremely as time goes on) by mastering engineers to make music play louder.  It sacrifices quality to some degree, and at its extreme it eventually makes the music sound something like what you'd get out of a boom box cranked to maximum volume.

Debelah Morgan follows with the soulful and melancholy “Why Did You Have To Be.”  But, why does she have to be so sad to have found a perfect man?

In her usual sassy, straight-up style, Sunshine Anderson breaks it down for an impatient man in “Don't Be Mad.”

Next, in “Here We Go Again,” Nappy Roots take us to the Durdy South, where it takes a lot for rappers to impress me (some do, but most don't).  Out of the sextet, one or two are halfways decent, and I'll leave it to your imagination to decide which, cuz I don't know their names.

Ms. Toi shows some pretty good mic skillz in “Love Me Or Leave Me.”  The hook is a bit repetitive.

Ezekiel Lewis drops some playa' R&B with “Rider Like Me.”  The beat is interesting, with a certain urgency to it.  No complaints on the vocals.

Uncle Kracker closes out the soundtrack with the in-yo-face “Break U Off.”  While a bit on the loud side, it is suiting.

Osmosis Jones: Music From The Motion Picture is a pretty good musical mix, overall.  “Open” alone makes it well worth having, but it's not like you can't just listen to the whole thing.