\n<\/p>\n
\n\tWhen Lainey Wilson<\/a> won the Grammy for Best Country Album in 2024 and spoke<\/a> onstage about growing up in a farming community of 200 people, Brian Dunne<\/a> was at home in his apartment in Brooklyn watching. And while the New York singer-songwriter is far from a country artist, he was inspired by Wilson to embrace his own roots.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cShe was talking about where she had come from and how she had gotten there\u2026 and I was thinking about how all of us in New York try to shed their identity. It\u2019s almost like you want to be born anew when you step off the bus,\u201d Dunne says on Rolling Stone<\/em>\u2019s Nashville Now<\/a><\/em> podcast. \u201cI was thinking maybe I should take a page out of that book and make a New York roots record.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tDunne did exactly that, crafting the songs that would become his latest album, Clams Casino<\/a><\/em>, named one of Rolling Stone<\/em>\u2019s 100 Best Albums of 2025<\/a>. It\u2019s a portrait of a working-class artist\u2019s existence where, as we wrote in our review of the album, \u201cjoys are hard-won and fleeting, self-doubt rears its head hourly, and the struggle to constantly achieve, or perform achievement on social media, looms like a\u00a0Scooby-Doo<\/em>\u00a0villain\u2019s shadow.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tOver the LP\u2019s 10 tracks, Dunne, who is also a member of the band Fantastic Cat, dismisses any idealized image of a chic New York existence.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cEverybody has this image of themselves walking down Bowery with their collar up, but maybe I should make a record that sounds like New Jersey Transit,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s where I come from.\u201d<\/p>\n