Show was pretty great in Atlantic City last night...they of course played the new songs all together and they were some of the best of the night.
Wrote about Recovering the Satellites, which I've been listening to a lot lately in the lead-up to its 25-year anniversary (which happens to be today). Counting Crows – Recovering the Satellites
Brilliant piece! You touched on a lot of what makes the record my favourite of theirs: the responsive abrasiveness, the emo groundwork, the hints of August. Here’s a cover I did of arguably my favourite song on the album!
Nice work, Ted! While we're sharing, here's a cover I did of my favourite song from the album, albeit in a completely different style.
Dug up a piece I wrote a few years ago about Hard Candy for that album's 20th anniversary, which is tomorrow. This record changed my life. Counting Crows – Hard Candy
did a discog run today 1. August and Everything After 2. Hard Candy 3. Recovering the Satellites 4. Somewhere Under Wonderland 5. This Desert Life 6. Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings August is just a stone cold classic and a delight from start to finish every time. Hard Candy and Satellites are both excellent and Wonderland, while I always thought had highs comparable to their best stuff, is actually more consistent than I remember. Desert Life is still mostly really good but with some filler and songs that go on too long. Saturday and Sunday is the obvious weak link. Some great tracks, some forgettable tracks, but mostly it's just average.
Most days, I’m here: August>Hard Candy>Satellites>Desert Life>SN&SM>Wonderland I really loved Wonderland when it came out, but looking back, I only think one of the songs would be in my top 25 from them. Adam adopts a very meandering, stream-of-consciousness approach to writing on that album that carried over to the EP, and I feel like he lost a lot of what made him such a great pop song writer. Those songs are cool for what they are, but he used to be great with hooks and with giving his songs a lot of momentum, and a lot of those songs kind of start and stop for me in weird ways. Live Duritz and studio Duritz had always been pretty separate things before that, but live Duritz really takes over on Wonderland, to the detriment of the songs. SN&SM, on the other hand, is an album I’ve really come around on over the years. It’s a hair too long and a hair too into its own concept, but there are some all-time great CC songs on there.
Wrote about August & Everything After, which came out 30 (!) years ago today. https://chorus.fm/reviews/counting-crows-august-everything-after/
Such a great band, my only real beef with them is that they are not exactly prolific. 6 albums (not counting the covers album) in 30 years? And 4 new songs in the last 9 years........I still love everything they do, just want MORE.
I got really into them when they dropped the greatest hits, which was a decade into their career. I find it endlessly depressing that they've only released two proper full-lengths since then.
25 year anniversary of This Desert Life today! Not my favorite CC album but it holds up really well, and obviously "Mrs. Potters Lullaby" is one of their best songs. Just wish it didn't end with "Kid Things," I've never come around on that one.
I never think about Kid Things as being an official part of the album, just a fun hidden track, like Big Yellow Taxi on Hard Candy. Both the worst songs on their respective albums, and both come after killer closing tracks. I’d love to hear a full album performance of TDL, the third in a string of four incredible albums