Record of the Month

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!    

I had high high hopes for the new Counting Crows disk, Butter Miracle, the Complete Sweets. It's their first full length disk in a decade, which just seems unreal to me. 

About three years ago, the Crows released Butter Miracle - Suite One. The disk contained four songs. The idea was to release the rest at a later date on Suite Two - which never quite materialized. 

The band reworked (or scrapped) the Suite Two and started over, or tweaked (or both). Suite Two was scrapped for the Complete Sweets - which was the new material along with what would or could have been Two.  And yes, they made it a homophone. 

I was totally wow'd by the first single from the full disk, "Spaceman in Tulsa", which still resides as my #1 song from 2025. 

Perhaps there was no way for them to top this song, because, they really don't on this disk. 

I like the Crows. I think I own everything they have, most of it good. Some of it great. Some fair. 

That sentence alone kind of reviews the latest disk. 

I gotta say, it starts off badly. "With Love, From A-Z" is not the way to kick off a disk. Maybe it would have been fine further down in the tracklist, but as the start? Nah. It seems a lot longer than it's 4:42 track time.  Don't get me wrong, breaking it down by pieces it is all good, but not the tenor for the album. 

Or maybe it is. 

The Counting Crows have always been able to make the slower material work, and it kind of does here, but not effectively. "Under the Aurora" made my mind other places. It just goes on for a long time and while not completely free verse, it doesn't really stick to any pattern either, so it's kind of all over the place. I'm hoping it changes for me over time.

"Boxcars" is a breezy rocker that benefits from an addictive chorus. There are stabs of pedal steel guitar the toe-tapping beat that drives the second half of the song, and the stinging riffs that appear from nowhere to set the blood pumping. 

The final four songs made up Suite One back in 2021 and are what I would call traditional Counting Crows songs. They're good, but nothing off the charts great. And that is absolutely fine. They are well written and performed. Some of the songs border on sentimentality and uncertainty - which is kind of lead singer and main songwriter, Adam Duritz' thing. 

It is tough to be fair sometimes with this band. They created an almost perfect debut disk 30 years ago, and have been trying to live up to that since. That's a tall order. They've had some near perfect songs since, and some stellar disks. 

This is in the upper part of those. Say what you will about album sequencing, but it make all the difference in the world, even with good material.