Hey all,
I’ve been listening to August and Everything After by the Counting Crows for a long time. It just recently occured to me that I might like their other albums, but I have this voice in the back of my head telling me that I won’t like them. I think the feeling is becuase I think the other albums, while good in their own right, will unfavorably match up to August and Everything After. Is my assessment accurate, or is there another Counting Crows Album I should pick up?
I’m partial to This Desert Life myself, which I played back-to-back with August and Everything After when deciding which album I should add to my collection.
I’m quite partial to Recovering The Satellites. Just for example, Angels of the Silences really rocks, and stuff like Long December and Daylight Fading (the best REM song REM never wrote) is as good as anything on August…. Plus it gains points for *not *having the horrendously overplayed Mr Jones, IMHO. But this is balanced out by also not having Sullivan Street, so it’s all good.
This week I rank the studio albums in this order of greatness:
This Desert Life fave track - Mrs Potter’s Lullaby
Hard Candy - Butterfly In Reverse
August and Everything After - Rain King
Recovering the Satellites - Goodnight Elisabeth
but, now that I am reminded that they aren’t in the stacker at the moment, I will have a different list in a week, after reacquainting myself with them all.
I think that they are just about the most consistently interesting band on earth. That may be because of their limited catalogue, however. I wish they were an album a year band because I love Duritz’s songs.
Funny you should ask. I’ve been on a CC kick lately. My personal order of their albums would be:
August & Everything After
This Desert Life
Recovering the Satellites
Hard Candy
This Desert Life has grown and grown on me. It’s a very cohesive, strong album. Even the “bonus” track – a Stones-esque rocker – is strong.
Recovering the Satellites is a strong disc as well, but there are a couple songs that could have been lopped off and it would be leaner for it.
Hard Candy really disappointed me. There are several really strong tunes on it, but overall it seems to be suffering from Bored Successful Artist Disease (BSAD) wherein musicians who have achieved fame and fortune start playing around with different styles because they’re bored with themselves and their sound which leads to an uneven, mixed-bag kind of album. Hopefully Duritz and Company will focus the next time around and put out another cohesive album.
Anyway, you should buy another album. Why not? What have you got to lose? Aside from $12. I’d go ahead and do them in chronological order.