If You’re Loved by Some One You’re Never Rejected

Some music supervisors on television shows care more about breaking bands these days than actually fitting the best song with a scene. And writers are more than willing to write these musical montages because they can no longer fill forty-two minutes worth of dialogue anymore. I even remember reading one silly article about a feud between the supervisors of One Tree Hill and Grey’s Anatomy on whom broke an artist first.

Then you have a show like Friday Night Lights which builds its show around the spacey soundtrack provided by Explosions in the Sky and artfully selects music not base on what is on the radio or some silly chest thumping my a music supervisor that they single handedly broke a band but on what songs would heighten the mood of the scene. This was most notably evident with the Tony Lucca’s version of Daniel Johnston’s Devil Town that bookended episodes in the first season.

Another standout from the musical department at Friday Night Lights was the song the accompanied the official coupling of Landry and Tyra with If it’s the Beaches by The Avett Brothers. I can count the number of times I rushed to my computer to find a song I heard on a television show on one hand of a shop teacher, and that is one of them. The song managed to be heartbreakingly romantic without being sappy and got massive airplay on my iPod since Friday Night Lights helped me discover it.

Now after almost ten years on the indie circuit, the brothers Seth and Scott signed to Rick Rubin’s American Recordings with Rubin producing I and Love and You. And as Rubin shown on his session with Johnny Cash, Rubin has no problem producing great country music even with the Avett Brothers eclectic set up of acoustic guitar, banjo, piano, upright bass, trumpet and cello.

For those that lone introduction to the band is their contribution to Friday Night Lights, start right off with the first single, title track, album opener, I and Love and You (three word that became hard to say) that packs the same emotional punch as If it’s the Beaches and with all due respect to Jay-Z and Mos Def, I and Love and You is the best ode to Brooklyn since the Beastie Boys refused to sleep until they got there. From the title track, move to Heart Full of Doubt where the band prefects the emotional punch of previous work with the brothers vocals soaring with intertwining harmonies.

But the Avett Brothers just don’t settle with battling with Ryan Adams for the title of sappiest artist from North Carolina, there are also have plenty of songs that could kick start any hootenanny that just beg to be heard like Kick Drum Heart, Tin Man, Slight Figure of Speech, and Laundry Room which ends with a killer fiddle solo. The even wraps up the emotional punch and upbeat party into The Perfect Space effortlessly and to great effect.

Song to Download - Heart Full of Doubt / Road Full of Promise

(You can also download I and Love and You for free on Spinner.com)

I and Love and You gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.