Don't be fooled by this douche-baggery! This is a great band. Their lives shows are rad...why?...because they don't EVER play the songs the same. There's always something different. Sometimes, they mesh songs together. Sometimes, he sings a melody that sounds more like Colorblind, than Mr Jones. Sometimes, they're loud as shit Sometimes, they're playing quiet.*
Personally, I'll never pay to see them again. But I'm glad I got to see them once (They were wedged between Maroon 5 (yeah, I had to sit through that shit!) and John Mayer (We left when he started playing)) I'd rather listen to their records anyway, because they're loose, but perfectly made, perfectly created.
Everyone knows my love of the Counting Crows is unconditional...no matter how hard they sold out from day one, or how many soundtrack songs they write are fucking cheesy (yeah, the one from Shrek), how many commercials they're on. They are a great band, and Adam Duritz (though kind of a big douche) can write a song. A write good songs. But there's something literary about his song writing and the band's sound (yes, I hate when people call bands literary because they sing about literature (though the Hold Steady does this and it's brilliant, there's more to them as well) and think that a band being literary is their use of narrative thread and lyric arms reaching between songs, albums, and decades...sometimes). Durtiz's lyrical and song writing doesn't make nods to Mark Twain or Faulkner or anything like that, but he talks about his life, his women, his friends, his problems, and he's brutally honest and sometimes really fucking sentimental (sometimes it's toooooo much for even me), but Goddamn when pick up August and Everything After, then later listen to This Desert Life, and here about the same things, but those things are seen through different lenses (either more mature or more immature or more inconsiderate than the last song about Maria or Elizabeth or California or what have you). There's change and struggle and wavering doubt and wavering hope, and it changes from song to song, album to album, year to year, listen to listen.
Everyone knows my love of the Counting Crows is unconditional...no matter how hard they sold out from day one, or how many soundtrack songs they write are fucking cheesy (yeah, the one from Shrek), how many commercials they're on. They are a great band, and Adam Duritz (though kind of a big douche) can write a song. A write good songs. But there's something literary about his song writing and the band's sound (yes, I hate when people call bands literary because they sing about literature (though the Hold Steady does this and it's brilliant, there's more to them as well) and think that a band being literary is their use of narrative thread and lyric arms reaching between songs, albums, and decades...sometimes). Durtiz's lyrical and song writing doesn't make nods to Mark Twain or Faulkner or anything like that, but he talks about his life, his women, his friends, his problems, and he's brutally honest and sometimes really fucking sentimental (sometimes it's toooooo much for even me), but Goddamn when pick up August and Everything After, then later listen to This Desert Life, and here about the same things, but those things are seen through different lenses (either more mature or more immature or more inconsiderate than the last song about Maria or Elizabeth or California or what have you). There's change and struggle and wavering doubt and wavering hope, and it changes from song to song, album to album, year to year, listen to listen.
Order of Favorite CC records:
Recovering the Satellites (THIS ALBUM IS BRILLIANT! FUCKING BRILLIANT!)
The Desert Life (A very close second, just centimeters behind Satellites)
August and Everything After (Step Out the Front Door like a Ghost into the Fog where no one notices the contrast of white on white. In between the moon and you angels get a better view of the crumbling differences between wrong and right... BEST opening to an song, album, band, EVER. Top it and I'll buy you a Popsicle. There might be some ties, but I doubt there are lines that beat this...)
Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings (could be one if the second half was as gutsy and ripe as the first half)
Hard Candy (has great songs (like "Holiday in Spain," but is uneven and clearly the work of a band struggling to write songs together after years of touring and playing the same songs)
*
I was gonna keep writing about other bands...writing about The Hold Steady's narrative threads, and then the band the New Year, but maybe next time. I'm tired.
Later dudes and girl-dudes,
Joshua
3 comments:
Nice to see you do a little music analysis for once.
I won't even lie: wrote these guys off before I even gave an album a listen. But it was your persistent badgering and finally when we worked together and you played their stuff that I was shown the error of my ways. Recovering the Satellites is money, through and through. Mosh.
I don't know if I can give you a better opening to a song, but I can certainly give you one of the WORST.
"So she said, "What's the problem baby?"
What's the problem I don't know
Well maybe I'm in love, think about it every time
I think about it, can't stop thinking 'bout it
How much longer will it take to cure this
Just to cure it 'cause I can't ignore it if it's love
Makes me wanna turn around and face me
But I don't know nothing about love"
Hmmm...yeah.
Emily: sick burn.
Yeah, Recovering the Satellites is wicked good, and somehow I've never heard all of This Desert Life (although for several years I was really obsessed with "I wish I was a girl," which might be my favorite CC song), and the other albums are pretty hit or miss for me.
"Round Here" is a damn good opener. My favorite, though, might be "Tunnels" opening up Arcade Fire's "Funeral." Hard to beat.
Also, HEY, if you're gonna stand by Counting Crows, I'm going to stand by Maroon 5's first CD--look past the prepackaged MTV singles and there's some pretty likable funky shit on there. I saw them live at the Showbox waaaaaaaay back in the day and they put on a hell of a show, and closed by covering a Nine Inch Nails song and playing so hard they broke about half their strings/keys/drumheads. Their previous band, Kara's Flowers (same line-up, much different sound) has a sweet disc, too, called Stagg Street Recordings. Everything else they've done, though, is indefensible.
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