But what I perhaps admire most is how little one needs to share in that kind of obsession to be wholly moved by it. These are all things I personally love about rock. For me, the insertion of “Feel Flows” into Almost Famous activates everything that’s exciting about rock and rock history-the way it’s constantly being written and re-written, the connections, the movements, the possibility of transport and most especially the active work of the music lover towards discoveries that could effect a sea change in their own personal road map through rock lore. in the hopes of finding the chorus, lyric, or riff that re-captures some piece of past glory. “Feel Flows” is the kind of song that leads obsessive record collectors to march on past Pet Sounds and Exile on Main St. Either way: therein lies the essence of pop. Would Cameron Crowe have still won an Oscar? Would we still be deluged with Kate Hudson romantic comedy vehicles? Would Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” have been re-introduced into the pop music lexicon? I’m sure many readers can recall a similar experience, sitting stunned by a song-image combination, whether it be unfamiliar, enticing music, or a track held near and dear wholly recontextualized. Four years later, I honestly only half-remember the scene it played over, though each of the many listens I gave it following that screening are inextricably linked to this idea of it being “the only good thing about Almost Famous.” I often wonder what would have happened had the song taken audiences out of the movie in the same way I was. Snuck into the middle of an otherwise unremarkable soundtrack for an unremarkable rock film was Carl Wilson’s finest hour, the utterly transporting “Feel Flows,” from the Beach Boys’ 1971 oddity Surf’s Up, which I’d heard, but never experienced in quite that way. For a few brief minutes I actually liked Cameron Crowe’s bio-rock opus Almost Famous.

School of rock full movie