Various Artists - O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (25th Anniversary) [2LP]

O Brother, Where Art Thou? turned a Coen brothers comedy into an unlikely roots-music phenomenon, and this 25th anniversary edition spreads the soundtrack across two LPs in a gatefold jacket.

Producer T Bone Burnett gathered the music before filming began, drawing on old-time string bands, bluegrass, gospel and Delta blues to match the film's Depression-era Mississippi setting. Released in 2000, the album became a surprise blockbuster and went on to win the Grammy for Album of the Year, sending a whole generation of listeners back to the source material.

I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow, sung by Dan Tyminski for the film's fictional Soggy Bottom Boys, became the breakout hit. Alison Krauss leads the luminous Down to the River to Pray, Ralph Stanley delivers a chilling a cappella O Death, and Harry McClintock's original recording of Big Rock Candy Mountain sits beside new performances from Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch and the Fairfield Four. Vintage recordings and fresh sessions blend so naturally that the decades between them almost disappear.

A quarter century on, this anniversary edition celebrates a record that changed how mainstream audiences heard American folk traditions. The gatefold presentation suits music this warm and weathered, and it still sounds best with the lights low and the needle down.