I Love You, Man (Music from the Motion Picture)

Even the soundtrack to I Love You, Man has a couple of not-so-inside jokes. Jason Segel, one of the movie’s main stars, cut his teeth in the cult television series Freaks and Geeks as the goofy lionhearted Nick Andopolis — a wannabe drummer who believed that listening to Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” counted for doing homework. And sure enough, the 1981 proggy radio hit surfaces here. Latch Key Kid’s bouncy folk rocker “Good Times” opens the soundtrack with a sunny tone that bubbles and skips along with the kind of youthful vibe that would have also worked well in the film Juno. Conversely, things get a little greasy and gritty by the time the Black Keys’ “Set You Free” surfaces with its lo-fi bluesy strut. Remember when a young Beck used to hinge his early musings on the blues? “Soul of a Man” finds him dipping his small toe back into the Mississippi river, but the slathered layers of space age production keep things sounding more modern. The Donnas split the difference between old and new with an updated, guitar heavy cover of Billy Idol’s ’80s hit “Dancing With Myself.” But nothing here captures the film’s bromance like Dean Martin’s “Ain’t That a Kick In the Head.”