Debating the Top 15 Cuts ‘High Fidelity’ Fans Can Live With

Putting the music together for the movie “High Fidelity” was a supreme challenge. Not only did it have to work in the context of the film, but it also had to meet the exacting standards of some of the most persnickety music fans ever--the characters in the book by English novelist Nick Hornby that the film, due for release March 31, is based on.

Quintessential music nerds who work in a record store, Rob Gordon and his pals are completely obsessive when it comes to music, constantly debating the relative merits of obscure artists and classic rarities, and making lists of the best-ever anything they can think of. And they don’t suffer anyone else’s opinions gladly.

John Cusack, who plays Gordon and on whose behalf the story was relocated from ‘80s London to contemporary Chicago for the film, isn’t sure these guys would approve of the final music choices.

“The characters probably wouldn’t be happy with anything,” Cusack said. “But I know Nick Hornby is happy with this, so that’s some endorsement. We kept asking him to be more critical.”

In any case, the 15 tracks that will be on the soundtrack album, due March 28 from Hollywood Records, touch on the basics of such devoted music fans. There are a few A-list gods (Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, the Kinks), proto-punk wellspring the Velvet Underground, “lost” ’60s acts Love and 13th Floor Elevators, soul icons Al Green and Stevie Wonder, with recent acts the Beta Band, Stereolab, Smog and Royal Trux adding Y2K hipster quotient. Even new songs from John Wesley Harding and Sheila Nicholls--included at the behest of Hollywood Records--fit nicely.

For devoted music fan Cusack, getting into the proper mentality for the job wasn’t much of a leap. In fact, according to Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group Music President Kathy Nelson, working with Cusack and his writing partners, D.V. DeVincentis and Steve Pink, on his 1997 comedy “Grosse Pointe Blank” was almost like living out a chapter in “High Fidelity.”

“After that, I told the studio that John and his partners would be perfect for the [‘High Fidelity’] project,” Nelson says.

Indeed, Cusack admits that his obsessions with music are painfully close to those of the hapless Rob Gordon.

“When they said, ‘Those guys are just like Rob, Dick and Barry,’ we didn’t like it at the time,” Cusack says. “But I understood it as a twisted compliment.”

The line between the film’s fictional music debates and the real-life ones for the soundtrack got rather blurry. Between Nelson, Cusack and his co-writers, more than 1,000 song suggestions were made, with enough taken seriously to fill 30 CDs for consideration by director Stephen Frears. Ultimately, it came down to 65 music cues in the movie, with 15 used on the album (a second album is a possibility).

“It was real life imitating art,” Nelson says. “We’d sit around and everyone would have their lists--’Here, play your song and tell us why you like it.’ ”

Of the two brought in by Hollywood Records, Harding’s had a seeming advantage. The English singer-songwriter is actually friends with Hornby, who was a fan even before they met.

But his “I’m Wrong About Everything” was actually recorded last fall for his own upcoming album, and was only later submitted to the film’s music supervisors--without Hornby’s involvement.

“I wish people that I know who are well-known were pulling nepotistic stunts for me,” Harding said. “But they’re not.”

*

MR. WILSON: After years of stage fright and other problems kept him from performing regularly, Brian Wilson had so much fun doing his first-ever solo tour last fall that now he plans to record a live album. He’s booked two nights at the Roxy, April 7 and 8, just for that purpose. Tickets will go on sale Saturday.

“I really enjoyed doing the live shows last year and enjoyed being close to my fans,” Wilson says. “I had no idea how much people really liked me.”

As on the tour, he’ll be backed by the L.A. band the Wondermints and several musicians from his current hometown, Chicago. He’ll also incorporate the acoustic set he worked up for his appearance at Neil Young’s annual Bridge School benefit concert in October.

The album will be sold via the Internet, marking the launch of a new Web site he will be establishing at https://www.BrianWilson.com. Actually, a site already exists at that address, but it was established, without Wilson’s permission, by an environmental activist who used the name of the former Beach Boy to attract traffic. Wilson has just acquired the rights to the domain name.

*

PHISH STICKS: Phish’s neo-hippie fans wouldn’t figure to be into the post-punk ironies of Pavement. But Phish frontman Trey Anastasio is. So the Vermont band hired Bryce Goggin, who produced several Pavement records, to produce its next album, “Farmhouse,” due May 16.

And in contrast to its last release, “Hampton Comes Alive,” a sprawling six-CD document of a two-night concert stand that highlighted Phish’s famed jamming skills, the new one might be the band’s most concise and focused work.

“It’s 12 songs, with the total time not much more than 50 minutes,” says Phish manager John Paluska. “And there’s not really an extended piece at all.”

The album also was an inaugural project for the building in which it was recorded, an old post-and-beam barn that Anastasio bought and relocated to his Vermont spread, furnishing it with recording gear. Paluska says the sessions were appropriately casual--at first they weren’t even aimed toward an album--with bluegrass aces Bela Fleck and Jerry Douglas sitting in on one instrumental, and some local horn and strings players on a couple of other songs.

Shortly after the release of the set, a documentary about Phish will appear in theaters. Titled “Bittersweet Motel” and directed by Todd Phillips (whose “Frat House” won Sundance’s documentary grand-jury prize in 1998), the film follows a year in the life of Phish.

“Todd wanted it to have a ‘70s rock documentary feel,” says Paluska. “It’s got longer shots and takes than you see today. It’s not really like ‘Gimme Shelter,’ but was very inspired by that kind of filmmaking.”