Record Rack

Want a little depth with your mood music? This hit collection of tunes heard in the popular teen-romance flick gets that out of the way early, with former Onyx member Fredro Starr’s uplifting rap ballad “Theme From ‘Save the Last Dance,’ ” a hopeful (if obvious) discourse on racial and social divides and how they can be bridged if we understand we’re all the same inside.

But since young love equals hormones in overdrive, the dominant pop strain on this album is mid-tempo R&B; and hip-hop beggin’-for-your-love songs. Truly tender sentiments are in short supply (an exception is Lucy Pearl’s heartfelt “You”), as the generic come-ons offered by such smooth operators as Montell Jordan and Kevon Edmonds quickly blur together. But the lusty bedroom soul of X-2-C’s “Bonafide,” with its raspy vocal and plush, slightly eccentric production, reveals that satisfaction is all in the technique.

K-Ci & JoJo sound a melancholy romantic note with the moony breakup lament “Crazy,” while Athena Cage mixes a gospel flavor into the optimistic “All or Nothing.” A handful of less sentimental rap numbers, such as Ice Cube’s “You Can Do It,” don’t add much of an edge. Use the CD-track programming, and turn the lights down low.

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