Books of 2026, #2 - "The Uncool," Cameron Crowe

Cameron Crowe's first years at Rolling Stone corresponded roughly with the time I first began buying the magazine (or asking mom or dad to buy it for me), the Summer of 1974.  At the time I had no idea who Crowe was, or that he had begun writing for the magazine the same year I finished elementary school (1972). 

I started subscribing in 1976, but it wasn't until I bought all of the remaining bound versions of the magazine when they closed the San Francisco warehouse in 1978 that I really began to delve into the past issues.  Via those bound editions I have every issue from November 1972 through April 1976, which many (if not most) observers would probably agree represented the peak years of the publication.  I feel exceptionally lucky to have those bound issues; they are a treasure trove of musical and political history, not to mention personal memories.  For example, when I see the May 1975 cover with John Denver on the cover, I remember exactly where I was on the day I bought the issue - in Berkeley, as part of a high school field trip to visit the UC Berkeley campus.

I don't know that I read every single one of Crowe's features for the magazine, but certainly read most of those that play a role in The Uncool.  To this day, the one that sticks in my memory the most (and which he references in the book) is his contribution to "The Men's Issue," a very funny piece based on his adventures (and more often, misadventures) learning about sex while on many occasions being surrounded by rock stars, roadies, and groupies.  Not every 15-year old boy would have turned down an offer to be seduced to instead go back to his room to watch Steely Dan on The Midnight Special, but kudos to Crowe for making what was almost certainly the right choice.

Where Crowe fits into the pantheon of the first and second generation of RS writers is an interesting question.  If you accept Robert Draper's 1990 "uncensored history" of the magazine as the definitive account of those years (I'd certainly trust it more than Almost Famous, and Draper definitely talked to all the right people), there isn't really evidence of him being among the famous or prolific of the RS stable of writers.  The "most famous" title would probably fall to either Hunter S. Thompson or Annie Leibovitz, and maybe throw in an honorable mention for Ralph J. Gleason.  Crowe wrote a lot of features, but Ben Fong-Torres (and maybe even David Felton) wrote more.  Among those with more mentions in Draper's book than Crowe include Lester Bangs, Jonathan Cott, Fong-Torres, Gleason, Jon Landau, Leibovitz, Greil Marcus, Dave Marsh, Paul Nelson, Charles Perry, Paul Scanlon, Thompson, Charles M. Young, and of course Jann and Jane Wenner.  

Crowe didn't write reviews for RS, but he was among those asked to name their ten favorite records for the Tenth Anniversary issue.  Crowe's ten selections (and what he wrote about each) were:

Katy Lied, Steely Dan.  Anonymous, absolutely impeccable swing pop.  No cheap displays of human emotion.

Something/Anything, Todd Rundgren.  Gloriously cheap displays of human emotion.

For the Roses, Joni Mitchell.  In which Joni Mitchell so far outstrips anything else to emerge from the singer/songwriter boom that half the field promptly drops out.

Physical Graffiti, Led Zeppelin.  Harder than Exile on Main Street and three times as convincing.

At the Fillmore East, The Allman Brothers Band. The tragic and ultimately garish aftermath of the Allman Brothers Band began immediately after the release of this magnificent live album.  Now their memory is all but obscured; no one even yells out "Whipping Post" at concerts anymore.  Their spooky pinnacle remains.

Jackson Browne, Jackson Browne.  Taken as a whole, this album is a southern California Catcher in the Rye.  Jackson will doubtlessly continue to make more finely crafted records, but nothing as wide-eyed and endearing as the first.  

Spinners, The Spinners.  Thom Bell, ladies and gentlemen.  Thom Bell!

"Take it Easy," The Eagles.  Those first two chords mean instant top-down summer...anywhere, any time.  Not, however, worth the trip to Winslow, Arizona.

"Ohio," Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.  If punk is any indication of the alternative I'll stick with the Sixties wimps.

Reading The Uncool, none of those choices (with the possible exception of The Spinners) should come as a huge surprise.  So given all of this, where should one place Crowe in the RS pantheon?  I'd say at or near the top tier, for a couple of reasons.  One, he served as a bridge of sorts, both between a new generation of potential RS readers and the old guard, and between a group of artists that either Wenner, one of his feature writers, or one of his critics had offended over the years.  Without Crowe, it is possible that there never would have been feature cover stories on the Allmans, Joni, Zeppelin, Eagles, or David Bowie.  Those are all major artists, and an important piece of that era which otherwise might have gone totally untouched.

So to the book.  Let me start by saying that I enjoyed it a great deal.  In thinking about how Crowe approached the material, I think he could have gone two ways.  Chet Flippo, for example, wrote a wonderful book - On The Road With The Rolling Stones - based largely on his reporting on the Stones tours of the 1970s and his features about the band that appeared in RS during those years.  Crowe takes a different route - he is telling his story and his family's story, and in many ways the big rock stars are just his supporting cast.  You're as invested in the ultimate outcomes for his mother, father and two sisters as you are in what happens during his crazy times with Kris Kristofferson, David Bowie, Gregg Allman or Jimmy Page - legendary curmudgeons all.

For me, the best parts of the book were less the encounters with those legends - after all, we've all read a million stories over the years about Eagles, Zeppelin, Bowie et al. - but the quick connections with people like Jim Croce and Maury Muehleisen, Ronnie Van Zant and Billy Powell, Lee Michaels, Ronnie Wood.  Because I'm familiar with many of the Riverside County and San Diego locales that play prominent roles, that added to my enjoyment.  Hey, I saw Bruce Springsteen at the same venue where Cameron Crowe saw Elvis!  Making those types of connections are always cool.

My favorite chapter of the book is the one in which he describes his first meeting with Jann Wenner.  The meeting occurred on the day that Ralph Gleason died, so Wenner was really in no shape for the conversation, but kept his commitment.  At that point, in the early Summer of 1975, Crowe was on a real high - he had penned the cover story on Zeppelin, which had turned out to be one of the highest selling issues ever.  But Wenner wasn't there to clap him on the back, he was there to help make Crowe a better writer:

"Listen," he finally said.  "You missed the story."  My heart sank.  "I mean, you clearly love Led Zeppelin, but what was your purpose here?"

I stammered something about wanting to accomplish what was once unthinkable.  A cover story on the band who hated the magazine the most.  Like me, there were many fans who wanted to read about them in Rolling Stone.  

"But you didn't write about what you saw, what you felt."  He rubbed his face.  It was still red with tears. "You wrote what they wanted you to write, not what you wanted to write.  What did you see?  What did you feel?  What did you want to say about them?  Because this article could have been dictated by the band.  What would a real writer have written?"

Jann Wenner has deservedly gotten a lot of heat and outright disdain over the years for some questionable decisions, but in this passage Crowe provides a valuable insight into just why Wenner was so successful for so long.  I've seen Greil Marcus and Dave Marsh both say how Wenner contributed to their skills as writers, but I've never seen an example quite as good as this one.

One thing people should know before buying the book  If you're looking for a lot of material about Crowe's work in film or much of anything about music of the past two decades, this is not the book for you.  But it definitely was the book for me.

Next in the queue: Gambler: Secrets from a Life at Risk, Billy Walters.

A Musical Tour: 2025 Albums

Since I began participating in a year-end music poll a few years back, I've taken my own year-end rankings more seriously than one should.  Last year I made the mistake of submitting my ballot too early, which resulted in what turned out to be my favorite album of 2024 - Wussy's Cincinnati, Ohio - not even being on my list.

The poll, based on the format of the Village Voice Pazz & Jop Poll (more on that below), is on Facebook, so participants can view each submittal as they're posted on the site.  I took my time this year, made note of albums I hadn't heard that were appearing on a lot of lists, and submitted my own entry on the day before the January 3 deadline.  Even then, once the results were published, there were a couple of high finishers that might have cracked my Top Ten. 

Like Pazz & Jop, the way the poll works is that participants have 100 points to allot to 10 albums.  The maximum award is 30, the minimum 5.  A lot of participants (this year there were 304) just pick 10 albums and award 10 points to each, but I've always thought that was the easy way out.  For me, this year was difficult, because truth be told there wasn't a huge gap between my #1 and my #10 (or even #20, for that matter).  

1. Patterson Hood, Exploding Trees and Airplane Screams (15 points).  In the liner notes, Hood writes, "My solo albums have always had a separate life from my work with DBT (Drive-By Truckers, for the uninitiated), but I decided that the next time I did one, it needed to be a bigger departure than the others."  That is certainly true - had the album been released in November instead of February, it might not have cracked my Top Ten.  Which is to say, the songs took a while to sink in.  There's only one obvious rocker, "The Van Pelt Parties," which is about a family that hosted huge parties on Christmas Even when Hood was growing up.  The songs are largely autobiographical, and in several instances - most notably, "Airplane Screams," a song Hood wrote about a troubled friend when he was only twenty - originally written years ago.  

2. Big Thief, Double Infinity (13).  The band's 2022 album, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You, was probably more heralded (it even received a Grammy nomination), but Double Infinity clicked with me in a way the previous record never did.  This is atmospheric rock/folk at its best.  Adrienne Lenker doesn't have a "pretty" voice per se, but she sings beautifully on the album.  Choice cuts: "Words," "Los Angeles," "No Fear," "Grandmother," "How Could I Have Known."

3. Snocaps, Snocaps (12).  Snocaps is comprised of twin sisters Katie and Allison Crutchfield, with key assists from Brad Cook and MJ Lenderman.  Katie is best known for her outstanding work in/as Waxahatchee, and the sisters do themselves proud on this joint effort.  They each sing on the album, and to these ears it's impossible to tell them apart.  The best songs - in particular, "Doom" and  - are the ones where they sing in harmony.  The album clocks in with 13 songs and at a brisk 33 minutes, and there is not a single minute wasted.

4. Bruce Springsteen, Tracks II (11).  How often does an album (or in this case, a box set) have its own trailer?  Maybe it's happened once or twice, but off the top of my head I don't remember one.  But there it was last April, a trailer for Tracks II, with Bruce himself talking about how people assumed he didn't do much work during the 90s (outside of raising some kids, presumably), but no!  He was working all the time!  And there were not one, not two, not even three, but SEVEN unreleased albums in the can, an injustice that would now be rectified in three short months.  What Bruce fan would not be excited by such news?  For Bruce fans, it was like our "Taylor's Version" announcement.

As it turns out, the marketing was a little misleading.  Two of the "albums" included in the package - LA Garage Sessions '83 (Disc 1) and Perfect World (Disc 7) aren't really albums per se, they're compilations of unreleased tracks, similar to the original Tracks set and the discs that accompanied the anniversary versions of Darkness on the Edge of Town and The River.  A third disc, Fearless, is a soundtrack from a movie that was never made.  But that leaves four fully-realized albums that for various reasons Bruce chose not to release: Streets of Philadelphia Sessions (although I'm sure it would have been called something different had it been released at the time), Somewhere North of Nashville, Inyo, and Twilight Hours.  

Of those four, the one I was most looking forward to - Streets of Philadelphia Sessions - is the one I enjoyed the least.  It's not bad, probably A-/B+ territory, but for me it proved that what no doubt would have been the album's title track had it been released at the time was a glorious one-shot whose quality couldn't quite be extended over the course of an entire album.  North of Nashville is a fun romp, and would likely have been considered just that.  Not quite "Bruce goes country," but close enough.

That leaves Inyo and Twilight Hours, two albums that couldn't sound less alike if he was trying (maybe he was), and they're both great - solid A's.  My guess is that Inyo likely appeals most to fans of Nebraska, The Ghost of Tom Joad and Devils & Dust.  The following is written in the box set's liner notes, and is a fair description of what the album is about:

Inyo is another set of richly woven, deeply human stories like those found on The Ghost of Tom Joad and Devils & Dust, albums contemporary to much of this material.  Several touch on the Mexican diaspora: how border crossing between Mexico and the US has affected generations, along with the cultural losses endured as a result.  A few were written during the 1995-97 solo tour in support of Joad.

It's an album that benefits from repeated listens, and it definitely helps to have the lyric sheet handy. But to these ears, the music is gorgeous, perfectly complementing the stories Bruce tells in the songs.

Which leaves Twilight Hours, the biggest surprise in the set.  It's been described as his Sinatra album, which makes sense, but it's both different and more than that.  It's Bruce exploring a genre of music that he obviously respects - the Sinatra chapter in his memoir makes that clear - and unlike much of his foray into Jimmy Webb/Glen Campbell territory on Western Stars, it works in a way that makes me astonished that he never let the record see the light of day until now. 

The two compilation albums that bracket the set?  I'm glad they exist, and they provide an insight into what Bruce was thinking about and working on at the time the songs were recorded.  Like all compilations of the type, they're a little hit and miss, but there's far more than enough outstanding material to justify their existence.

5. Hayley Williams, Ego Death At a Bachelorette Party (10).  I was embarrassingly late to the party on Paramore, the band for which Williams is the lead singer.  The first inkling that they'd been around a lot longer than I knew was when some of my colleagues covered one of their songs during a karaoke event at a conference I attended.  I'd describe her solo album as being more pop-oriented than her work with Paramore, and the album - 20 tracks, many of which she released as singles over the course of 2025 - is an embarrassment of riches.  It was really difficult to pick just four tracks for my year-end playlist from the album, and I'm still not sure I chose the right four.

6. James McMurtry, The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy (10).  McMurtry is another artist where it's good to have the lyric sheet handy, which one would expect given he's the son of Larry, the great 20th Century novelist.  Black Dog is a little more diffuse thematically and perhaps not quite as good as 2015's Complicated Game and 2021's The Horses and The Hounds, but considering both of those were my favorite albums the years they were released, that's hardly an insult.  Highlights are "South Texas Lawman," which could be expanded to a great short story, "Annie," and "Sailing Away."  The album concludes with a great cover of Kris Kristofferson's "Broken Freedom Song."  Produced by Don Dixon, a name I don't think I'd seen since the 1980s.

7.  Robert Plant with Suzi Dian, Saving Grace (9).  Every now and then you see an invitation to post your "least popular take" about movies, music, etc.  Definitely one of my least popular takes is that I think Robert Plant's post-Led Zeppelin musical catalogue is fully equal to that which came before, if not superior.  That's intended more as praise for Plant than as disrespect to Zeppelin, but we're now 46 years past the last Zeppelin album and Plant just keeps cranking out one good album after another, exploring myriad styles but always sounding just like himself (although those high notes are a thing of the past, I think).  The highlight of this record is his cover of "I Never Will Marry," nearly half a century after Linda Ronstadt's great version (with Dolly Parton on harmony) on Simple Dreams.

8. The Delines, Mr. Luck and Ms. Doom (8).  Hailing from Portland, Oregon, they call themselves a "retro country-soul band."  Listening to their songs, you can imagine them being recorded somewhere in the south in the late 1960s.  Think of Bobbie Gentry mixed with the Muscle Shoals sound, and you get the idea.  This was my first deep foray into their work, but it won't be the last.  Highlights: "There's Nothing Down the Highway," the title track, and "Maureen's Gone Missing."

9. Kathleen Edwards, Billionaire (7).  I still remember where I was the first time I heard Kathleen Edwards.  We were on a short vacation in Santa Cruz, and during an afternoon strolling around the downtown area we found ourselves browsing at the local Borders, where her album Back to Me (her second) was playing.  The album, and especially the song "Summerlong," resonated with me immediately and I bought the record (something I had a habit of doing back in those days).  It was outstanding, as was the follow-up, Asking for Flowers.  The album after that was a letdown, overly influenced by her then-relationship with Bon Iver.  Then came nearly a decade with no new music, during which she actually opened and operated a coffee shop.  She returned with the solid Total Freedom in 2020, and in early 2025 released a couple of solid EPs, one that was all cover versions.  

Billionaire was described by Pitchfork as "a polished update of the rough-edged alt-country folk rock that informed her first three LPs," and that's fair.  The album was co-produced by Jason Isbell, and his recognizable guitar licks can be heard on nearly every track.  The title track just might be my favorite song of 2025, and "Other People's Bands" isn't far behind.  

10. Jason Isbell, Foxes in the Snow (5).  Speaking of Jason Isbell...this was his first truly solo album, featuring strictly acoustic guitar with very little (or perhaps none, it's sometimes hard to tell) accompaniment.  Going into 2025, I had a feeling we would be seeing new albums from Isbell and his now-ex wife Amanda Shires, and admittedly I wasn't looking forward to it.  Their breakup really bummed me out, even if anyone who watched the movie that was on HBO a while back could tell that there were some issues brewing there.  Unlike Shires, whose album was difficult to listen to because the pain and anger emanated from every track, Isbell doesn't address the breakup directly, although there are lines in both "Eileen" and "Good While It Lasted" that could be interpreted as being about what happened.  Overall it's very solid work, if not as powerful as his recent albums with the 400 Unit.

The Second Ten

Honestly, on any given day one of these albums might have found their way into the Top Ten - it was that close.

Lilly Hiatt – Forever.  Less heralded and less popular than she should be.

HAIM – I quit.  To these ears, their best album.

Tyler Childers – Snipe Hunter.  Produced by the erstwhile Rick Rubin, and a big step forward for a guy who will be a big star (and may be one now, for all I know).

Hayes Carll – We’re Only Human.  Carll just has a knack for writing great songs.  "Progress of Man (Bitcoin and Cattle)" is the all-timer here, and "High" (yes, it's about what you think it's about) isn't far behind.

Amanda Shires – Nobody’s Girl.  As noted above, very painful to listen to.  Jason clearly did her wrong, and if it didn't quite feel so much as if the album was her effort to make him look as bad as possible (and don't get me wrong, maybe he deserves it), I'd probably have ranked it a little higher.  But a truly great singer, and several of the songs are well beyond top-notch.

Lady Gaga – MAYHEM.  I'm not enough of a Gaga expert to know if this is a return to form or just the latest in a long line of good albums, but every song is filled with hooks and quite danceable - not that you'd want to see me try.

Bob Mould – Here We Go Crazy.  Remember Husker Du?  Great 80s band, mostly unsung.  Mould has continued to make records since then, and this is one of the best.

Lola Young – I’m Only F**cking Myself.  Last summer, I asked some of my younger friends (mostly in their 30s) what the summer bangers were, and one of them turned me on to Lola Young's "Messy" from 2024.  There's nothing quite that good on this album, but several cuts come very close.

Beach Bunny – Tunnel Vision.  Want hooks?  This band has more than enough to go around.

Margo Price – Hard-Headed Woman.  Fully back in the country fold, and this just might be her best.

The Rest

There was a lot of good stuff last year, and in addition to those above I enjoyed 2025 albums by: The Beths, Horsegirl, Wet Leg, Rodney Crowell, David Byrne, Bryan Ferry & Amelia Barratt, Blondshell, Mike Farris, Alison Krauss & Union Station, Patty Griffin, Emma Swift, Van Morrison, The Mountain Goats, Mavis Staples, Blood Orange, Galactic with Irma Thomas, Doja Cat, Wednesday, Sunny Sweeney, Trousdale, Patty Griffin, Clipse, Eric Church, and Japanese Breakfast.

Overall, I can't complain.  It was a good year, which was good because the need for distractions was at an all-time high.

"In the worst of times music is a promise that times are meant to be better." - Robert Christgau

Books of 2026, #1 - "The Proving Ground" (Michael Connelly)

The Proving Ground is the 40th book by Michael Connelly that I've read.  The first, The Black Ice, was released in 1993.  To put that in perspective, I've been reading books by Connelly for about half of my 65 years.  My 35 year old son was 2, and my 31 year old son wasn't even born.  That's a lot of time, and a lot of Connelly books.  I'm not even sure Stephen King has been that prolific over the same period of time - but no, I'm not going to check.

This is the 8th Connelly book featuring Mickey Haller, the Lincoln Lawyer (9, if you count his co-starring turn in The Crossing, which was billed as a Harry Bosch novel).  It's a return to top form for Connelly after The Waiting, which wasn't the best Bosch/Renee Ballard book; and Nightshade, which introduced a new character stationed on Catalina Island (Detective Stillwell) - which was fine, but lacked the punch of the best Connelly.

The plot of The Proving Ground is, as they say, ripped straight from the headlines.  Mickey Haller, who is now focusing solely on civil cases (and has semi-retired his beloved Lincoln), takes the case of a mother whose teenage daughter was murdered by an ex-boyfriend, on the advice of an AI chat companion.  The company being sued, "Tidalwaiv," is headed for a lucrative merger and looking to settle the case by any means necessary.  Complications ensue when the parents of the boy who pulled the trigger join the case.  Are they on the same page as the grieving mother, or are they more worried about protecting their own son and their reputation as parents?  Key witnesses are reluctant to testify.  Can Haller turn them to his side?

Mickey's ex-wife Maggie McPherson plays an important role in the book, and his chums Lorna (another ex-wife) and Cisco are also on board.  Bosch (who for the uninitiated, is Haller's half brother, revealed many books ago) is mentioned, but only a couple of times, and in a way that makes it possible if not likely that his next appearance may be his last.  The courtroom dialogue is crisp, the opposing lawyers are appropriately oily, and yes, it's a hard book to put down.

All in all well done, and recommended.

Next in the queue: Cameron Crowe's memoir, The Uncool.

New Year

In California, the first Monday in January marks the first day of the legislative session, after a break in the fall that begins on September 1 in even-numbered years and in mid-September in odd-numbered years.  It takes a while for the Legislature to get into gear, introduce bills and start committee hearings, but January is truly a "hit the ground running" month, because the governor is required to release his proposed budget for the next fiscal year on or before January 10.  As I sometimes joked, the timing was designed in a way to fully eradicate all the good will built up over the holiday season as quickly as possible.

Because I retired in October, today was the first such Monday in a very long time where none of that really mattered.  I'm not sure I've quite gotten the hang of "the retirement thing," but I'm getting there.  Today I braved the elements (not super cold, but quite windy) for a walk, and caught this little tree in a nearby park with a few lonely Christmas ornaments still hanging.  We'll see how long it takes for the holiday-minded person who put them up to retrieve them.