AC/DC

You could think of this soundtrack in the crassest of terms. Famously, AC/DC have never released a greatest hits collection. Even when Rock Band came calling a couple of years ago, the Aussie rockers were unwilling to relent, offering up their 1992 live album for the videogame treatment instead of compiling their best tracks. No doubt, the band got a lot of dough to do this. But their music is also strangely appropriate for this comic book franchise: big and brash, but always with a knowing wink. Iron Man 2 is far from a "best of"; the 25 selections here are more of a retrospective of the group's 35-year career, pulling tunes from 2008's Black Ice ("War Machine") and dipping all the way back to their North American debut ("T.N.T."). Meanwhile, mega-hits like "Back in Black," "Thunderstruck" and "Highway to Hell" sit next to deep cuts like "Guns for Hire" and "Evil Walks." The band offer up nothing new, other than a studio cast-off that ended up on last year's Backtracks box set, so it's not clear who this collection is aimed at. Still, if you only know these hard rock stalwarts from movie trailers and hockey arenas, this is a pretty good place to start.