I figured I'd do a monthly 'what I'm listening to' kind of thing. This could be viewed as a lame placeholder kind of post. And probably it is. But it's my blog! So there!
These may or may not be newly released disks. They might not even be a good disk - just what is been in heavy rotation in my car (as usually the iPod is playing anywhere else).
When Adam Duritz sings, "I am the king of everything, I am the king of nothing" - he ain't lying. With the Counting Crows there is very little in between. They are either really good, or they are not.
That being said, they are never really bad - just marginal, which in a way is worse. I always remember a BAD song, I never remember a mediocre one. Ok - that's a lie. If we truly only use 10% of our brains, mine is filled up with song lyrics, writer's credits, record labels and release dates. I look to Morty for chart position. It is amazing I have the ability to get from Point A to Point B when I drive somewhere.
I've always liked the Crows. I can't say I'm a die-hard fan, but they've put out some quality stuff. Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings hits the mark, now and again, but it misses too. Just like every Crows disk, save their debut. And that really is the problem. How can they ever live up to their first release - August and Everything After?
I get their 'concept' of the two sides of the disk, Saturday (more electric) and Sunday (more acoustic) and it kind of works.
The disk opens with "1492". My first thought was, 'what a beautiful mess!'. And it is. I'm guessing you love it or hate it. I really like it. But as I knew when Denton would hear it, he'd change the song - and he did.
"Hanging Tree" is still kind of a mess and I didn't like it at first. It is growing on me though. But "Sunday" (which ironically is on the Saturday side) is one of the best songs on the disk. Yeah, it kind of falls apart in the last minute, but I really like the first three and a half.
"Insignificant", "Los Angeles" and "Washington Square" seem to stand out for me too.
It is the acoustic side that stumbles a bit. Normally, I am driven more to acoustic type of music, and though this is ok, it's not ground-breaking or earth shattering. The single "You Can't Count on Me" is good enough, but it's not gonna break any charts. And I like "Le Ballet d'Or". But really I'm liking the electric side more.
The music is all playable, but it doesn't distinguish itself from Hard Candy or Recovering the Satellites all that much.
Like with many bands, if you lump their good stuff from multiple releases into one album, you'd have a killer disk. The Counting Crows are no different. Of the four studio disks that are not their debut, you'd have a great 14 song disk.
1 comment:
I have always loved them-- until they decided to re-do "Big Yellow Taxi" and have that gicky Michelle Branch do back-up vocals. LOVE "August...". REALLY LIKED "Recovering...". I may be swayed.
For me, it's Sia's latest, "Some People Really Have Problems." Her voice throbs at times, (not like Fiona's strange warbly throb)and it makes me tear up.
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