Orlando Bloom would never listen to these songs; that's part of what is so damningly disingenuous about his movie.
In Garden State, you could see oddball Zach Braff bopping along to the soundtrack's Shins ditties and that oh-so-perfect acoustic cover of The Postal Service's "Such Great Heights." Not so with Bloom and this soundtrack.
For one, he's a Brit, and thus, not a likely listener of Appalachian-tinged roots rock tunes. For another, Elizabethtown's music isn't for an effeminate, puppy dog-eyed leading man/pansy with an inability to grow facial hair.
The soundtrack is a menagerie of dazy-eyed, countrified lyrical vignettes that call to mind a nostalgic America few in our generations have witnessed-wheezy fiddles, dusty dirt roads and all. It's a thinker's record, a brooder's accompaniment to his (or her) brooding.
Bloom's incompatibility with Elizabethtown's soundtrack (and perhaps the entire movie) is not to say that this compilation is any less magnificent than Garden State's overrated opus. It's all the more. In fact, like any good cinematic backdrop, it contains songs that resonate with meaningfulness and the stuff that you won't soon forget. It's not another medley of average songs by trendy artists (i.e. Coldplay, The Shins, and especially, Iron & Wine) that won't stand the test of time.
Instead, Elizabethtown offers memory-singeing melodies that span musical generations like the haunting stomp of The Hollies' "Jesus Was a Crossmaker," the bittersweet yearning of Tom Petty's "Square One" and the melancholic warbling of Patty Griffin's "Long Ride Home."
And while there are several misfires on the soundtrack, including the stoner rock meets bluegrass of Lindsey Buckingham's "Shut Us Down," an incredibly atrocious selection of Jeff Hinlin's "Sugar Blue" and the obligatory Wheat track, those missteps are largely made up by the inclusion of the following two pieces of musical masterpiece.
Admittedly, I've never gotten into Ryan Adams-too critically fangled and prolific for my taste-but "Come Pick Me Up" off of his debut Heartbreaker is revelatory. Adams' wistful growl juxtaposed with some soft fiddlin' and strummin' conjure up sentiments of loss and longing better than any made-for-Lifetime movie.
And then there's Elton John's "My Father's Gun." It's a song that transforms his usually overwrought vocals into something significant, the rollicking piano and guitar into a perfect evocation of the emotional force and resonance Elizabethtown should've had.
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