Counting Crows Band • Page 14

they really need to repress This desert life and Hard Candy on vinyl

 

New Adam features. He sounds really great on these songs (which are strong in their own right).

 

Oh, You Like Counting Crows? When Was the Last Time You Danced the Silence Down Through the Morning?

 

Good. I liked the last EP and thought it was to be part of a series....that was 3 years ago now?

 

I'll forever be bummed that this band basically punted on two decades' worth of potential output.

 

New single “Spaceman in Tulsa” and the Complete Butter Miracle Suite coming. Sometimes Reddit has its uses!

 

Adam said after he finished the writing process for Suite Two he was given Gang of Youths' angel in realtime. to listen to (him and the frontman Dave are friends) and after finishing it he was like "the songs I have aren't good enough." He said that's the only time that has ever happened

 

LP is already sold out on their website? It only has options for a signed album and nothing else.

 

Took me a minute to get into the new song but by the end I was into it. Really fun chorus.

 

https://www.roughtrade.com/en-us/pr...er-miracle-the-complete-sweets#51300149166411

 

Yesssss

 

I will say that I'm happy they've not been out there doing the full nostalgia act thing. They could've just been coasting on anniversary tours for the past 10+ years but haven't really gone that route.

 

I absolutely love the new track and the last EP though and the complete Butter Miracle Sweets is poised to be their best album since This Desert Life.

 

Hard Candy is their second best album, so, not possible!

 

The album that ends with that corny ass "Big Yellow Taxi" cover!?

 

Goddamn right!

Anyone who writes off that album wholesale has not given it a serious listen, imo. Some of the deepest, saddest, smartest writing Adam ever did and people wrote it off because it sounded glossy and poppy.

@cshadows2887 knows!

 

I like it plenty, but no way in hell I'm putting it (as an album in its entirety) over August or Desert.

 

I'll really accept any ranking of the first four, I'm mostly surprised you hear anything in these new songs that gives you the "best since the '90s" feeling. I was really lukewarm on the first suite, and continue to struggle with those songs. This new one is a pretty big improvement, imo, but not to the point where I'm expecting a full return to past heights.

My ranking, for what it's worth:

August & Everything After
Hard Candy
Recovering the Satellites
This Desert Life
Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings
(Underwater Sunshine)
Somewhere Under Wonderland

 

"Big Yellow Taxi" is a bonus track. You can't count a bonus track toward your assessment of the album. It's extra. That record closes with "Holiday in Spain", which has a case for their best closer right alongside "A Long December"

Album is a goddamn masterpiece.

 

I’ll need to go back to Hard Candy, honestly can’t remember the last time I listened to it, but if I’m reaching for anything by them, it’s those first 3 records most days.

My ranking would be:

August
Desert
Satellites (though, like many people, I probably underrate this album)
Candy
SN&SM
Wonderland (mainly based on the strength of those first 2 tracks)
Underwater Sunshine


I haven’t gone deep on them, but there’s something about these Butter Miracle tracks that I vibe with and I just have fun listening to them.

 

I guess, technically, "A Long December" is the penultimate track. "Walkaways" is the closer.

I remember the first two records getting play around the house and in the car when I was a kid, but I got really into all those albums at around the same time after Films About Ghosts. I think that helped me appreciate them all more, because I didn't have the baggage or expectations that fans receiving those albums in real time probably had.

With that perspective in mind, I always liked August and Hard Candy best. Hard Candy was actually my favorite back then. I love (and still do) how bright and shiny it sounds. Poppy-sounding rock records were not super well received in the 2000s (see also: Chase This Light, Even If It Kills Me) but I thought it underlined how good Adam's melodies were. So many of their best songs are on that record, IMO.