This one is too serendipitous to keep from fulfilling dual purposes. Cameron Crowe’s autobiographical ‘Almost Famous’ is not only his finest film and one of the very best of its era (or in rock-flick history), it also yielded one of the mightiest compendiums of compiled classics this side of ‘Forrest Gump.’
Or at least it does in the extensive 6LP edition from 2021 housed in the box you see here, which not only gathers every song used in the movie — finally! including an unreleased live cut from Neil Young and scene-specific mixes like Elton John’s ‘Tiny Dancer’ with cast singalong — it also sequences them accordingly and stitches the whole thing together with memorable dialogue. Now THAT’s a soundtrack. So when it’s alphabetical turn in my #SoundtrackSunday A-Z rundown coincided with @urmsonvinylfan’s request for just such an album on this #SuperFriendsSunday, how could I not participate? As a determined critic who lucked into a plum career in the ‘90s at a relatively young age (albeit a few years older than Crowe’s teenage avatar William Miller), I’ve greatly related to this expertly recreated remembrance from the moment the last frame flicked by at a preview screening decades ago. It’s an all-time fave. Would I say the same of the soundtrack? Never could before, when a hearty smattering of 17 tracks still felt too skimpy. But at this length? And with all kinds of goodies inside — two replicated concert tickets, a Stillwater poster done up Allmans-at-Fillmore-East style, a facsimile of William’s Rolling Stone cover story, 40 pages of liner notes and photos within a knockoff of his marked-up notebook? Definitely. ‘Purple Rain’ and ‘The Harder They Come’ still get my tied vote for best single soundtrack ever. This glorious set, however, gets a special jury prize.
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#SoundtrackSunday 012:
‘Almost Famous’
DreamWorks/Geffen, 2000
d: Cameron Crowe