Adam Duritz of Counting Crows came to Rolling Stone today to talk about the band's new album Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings. Though he liked Rolling Stone's recent feature on him, he was upset that our album review wasn't more positive. "I don't know why people don't like me when they don't know me," he said. "Everyone loved us for a long time, and then they didn't love us for a long time, but we're still here."

After lunch, I looked back through Rolling Stone's archives for Counting Crows coverage, searching for some Duritz-love. Instead, I found this letter to the editor, from Counting Crows bassist Matt Malley, who left the band after their Hard Candy tour. Written in response to a piece about anti-Bush musicians, it proves Duritz isn't the only one who understands dudes who've been widely loved, then widely hated, and stuck it out just the same.

Dear Rolling Stone,

I am Counting Crows' bass player. I believe that you're cheating your readers by offering a one-sided argument regarding the upcoming election. George W. Bush is one of the greatest presidents in our country's history. After 9/11, he knew that America had to show the world that nobody should have tolerance for fanaticism and evil. You should present the facts with balance. — Matt Malley, Sherman Oaks, CA

[Photo: Getty]

Sonny Bono was many things to many people: singer, actor, politician, groomer of fierce push-broom mustache, hip-hop muse. Forget that he’s been name-checked in tracks by everyone from Lil Wayne to Fat Joe to Eminem: he has the honorary distinction of being the only Republican ever to get actual praise from Public Enemy. (Sucks for you, Orrin Hatch!) In the past month alone, two big rap albums have called him out. On the Re-Up Gang’s We Got it For Cheap, Vol. 3: The Spirit of Competition, Malice brags that he's gonna "Sonny Bono the slopes until the reaper call." (Not quite a bid to slalom Lake Tahoe, but still.) And on Ego Trippin', Snoop Dogg claims, "Me and My Money's like Sonny and Cher." Which, technically, means Snoop's influencing Congress while his money enjoys a lucrative music career. Just seems weird that the same guy who co-sponsored the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act, which limited rappers' rights to sample certain albums, should be heralded by the same artists it hindered. Still there are three reasons why Sonny Bono makes sense as a hip-hop legend:

A) He wrote ten gold records.

B) He died surrounded by snow. Dude went out like a true coke-rap superstar!

C) His name rhymes with “money.”