The soundtrack to Dear John is made up of a collection of easy listening tracks by various artists. Normally I avoid this sort of album like the plague - instead opting to buy each artists album if I really enjoy their musical style.

However, the tracks on this album are all so easy going that, as a throw away soundtrack to the summer, you'll find it hard to resist this collection.

Dear John features the folk sound of Joshua Radin & Schuyler Fisk’s 'Paperweight', the alt-folk song 'The Moon' from Oscar winning duo The Swell Season, alt-rock 'Amber' from 311, The Donkeys’ retro rock sounding 'Excelsior Lady' and 'Thing & Time' from the legendary roots group The Wailing Souls. It also features, star of Mamma Mia, Amanda Seyfried’s emotive track 'Little House', acoustic-guitar, navel-gazing Fink track 'This Is The Thing', Rosi Golan’s folk-pop number 'Think Of Me' and bitter-sweet pop of 'You Take My Troubles Away' from Rachael Yamagata & Dan Wilson.

The soundtrack concludes with Deborah Lurie’s beautiful instrumental 'Dear John Theme.' Personally I would have preferred an entire album of Lurie's music, but as it stands this is a cut above the usual various artists style soundtrack.

While far from an essential purchase, the soundtrack for Dear John is an album that you'll fondly look back on as your soundtrack to the Summer of 2010.

7

Darren Rea