ALMOST FAMOUS (1999): sound

Dozens of songs are used in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous (1999), some for only a few seconds or less. In some cases, the context of the movie and the song that was picked to accompany a moment complement each other powerfully. After the lead character William's sister leaves home to become a stewardess, she leaves a note under his bed along with some records telling him to listen to The Who's Tommy with a candle burning and see his future. In the next few shots we see young William lighting a candle and "Sparks" begins to play in the background, offering Cameron a perfect segue to literally let us see William's future. In the next scene, William has aged several years, his interest in music has grown exponentially, and we enter the timeframe in which the main events of Almost Famous are set. Cameron Crowe effectively uses Tommy as a device to move across time and space.

When music is added to a film, often it is to tint the viewer's perception of the mood of the moment, how they should feel, and what is to come. Due to the unique experience of designing a soundtrack for a movie about music, Cameron Crowe uses diegetic music heavily throughout the movie. Most notably, at one point the band all gathers in the tour bus after a rough night of drama and slowly the band members and accompanying friends begin to thaw, listening to Elton John playing on the bus speakers and beginning to sing along. This is unique because the song isn't just used to color the moment for the audience. The characters on the bus are also experiencing it, and the mood of "Tiny Dancer" affects both the story and the viewer simultaneously. As Cameron Crowe was recently quoted, "music will always be a single essential language shared by everybody, and it continues to be, regardless of format, price, social networking, sex, nationality, concert tickets or technology".