Craig Manning, writing for Modern Vinyl:
Few soundtracks rise to the level of cultural ubiquity that the 13-song Garden State album achieved. Along with the music from the FOX teen soap The O.C., the Garden State soundtrack was probably responsible for getting a lot of us out of our shitty adolescent music taste stages and pushing us toward more interesting, left-of-the-dial material. The album, put together by writer/director Zach Braff, was described as a mix CD of the songs he was listening to when he was writing the film’s screenplay. Needless to say, his mix CD changed a lot of lives.