The latest movie soundtracks are currently outselling other albums, according to numbers on the Billboard chart. The second best-selling album is, presently, Evita, followed by Romeo and Juliet (third), Space Jam (fifth) and The Preacher's Wife (seventh).

"It is rare," says Geoff Mayfield, Billboard's director of charts, for more than three soundtracks to crack the top ten at the same time. Some music industry executives believe that the sharp turn toward movie tracks indicates there's something wrong with their own approaches to music production. "The top music industry labels are no longer in demand because they've lost the ability to find new artists who have original material," says one critic.

Many young artists prefer to produce thematic hodgepodges on their albums, according to Karen Crowe of Arista Records. "Today's young performers can craft a catchy tune, but many of them are unwilling or incapable of producing a whole album with a coherent theme or sound." Ms. Crowe was responsible for putting Whitney Houston's voice into the soundtrack of The Bodyguard, an album which sold 33 million copies.

"Its getting difficult to turn one-hit wonders into enduring stars," says another executive, but artists who seem incapable of making whole albums, get showcased as singles in major soundtracks. Garbage and the Cardigans provide music for Romeo and Juliet, giving viewers/listeners in their 20's the kind of disaffected music with which they can identify.

It isn't easy for filmmakers to negotiate with record companies, according to Nora Ephron, a director who successfully used classic rock in such films as Sleepless in Seattle. The record companies want to get hits, while movie directors are simply looking for musical themes that fit within the context of their films.