Stillwater, the fictional band whose story is told in the film Almost Famous, has shared “Love Thing” from the new edition of the film’s soundtrack album. You can check it out below.
“Love Thing” was co-written by Heart’s Nancy Wilson and Cameron Crowe and it features on the newly-expanded Almost Famous OST which is out on July 9 through UMe. The label has compiled multiple iterations of the film’s Grammy Award-winning soundtrack, augmented comprehensively in the limited-edition Uber Box set that encompasses an expanded soundtrack with five CDs, seven 180-gram black vinyl discs, and a brand new 7-inch for Stillwater’s “Fever Dog.”
The expanded soundtrack includes songs from The Beach Boys, Joni Mitchell, Led Zeppelin, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, The Who, and Yes, plus all the songs created for the film’s fictional aspiring rock group Stillwater, most written for the movie by director Cameron Crowe, Heart’s Nancy Wilson and Grammy Award-winning guitarist, Peter Frampton.
The box set points out how exceptional the Almost Famous soundtrack was and remains. Crowe arranged for a dedicated remix & edit of the Who’s “Amazing Journey/Sparks” instrumental from their rock opera Tommy and live album Live at Leeds. For another scene, Crowe had grabbed a bootleg live recording out of his stash for Neil Young’s “Cortez the Killer” from a 1999 show, which Young recently unearthed from his extensive archive and newly mixed from the original multi-track analog tape for this release. The set is also highlighted with the inclusion of Elton John’s iconic “Tiny Dancer,” newly mixed with the cast members singing alongside the song as featured in the film.
Almost Famous is semi-autobiographical, as Cameron Crowe himself was a teenage writer for Rolling Stone. It is based on his experiences touring with rock bands Poco, the Allman Brothers Band, Led Zeppelin, Eagles, and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Crowe has discussed how during this period he fell in love, and met his musical heroes—these events represented in the film as happening to William Miller (played by Patrick Fugit), the boyish main character.
The film was initially released in 2000. Two decades later, the Oscar/BAFTA/Golden Globe Award-winning film remains one of the sweetest love letters to the genre, one that deftly captured the look, the sound, the feel, the attitude of what rock ‘n’ roll meant to its creators, its most fervent adherents, its hangers-on and its worried parents during a golden era of pop music.
The film received widespread acclaim from critics and received four Academy Awards nominations, including a win for Best Original Screenplay. It was also awarded the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media. Roger Ebert hailed it the best film of the year as well as the ninth-best film of the 2000s. It also won two Golden Globe Awards, for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture (Hudson).