Counting Crows--C/D

But they are forever burned into my head for Big Yellow Taxi and that song/video sums up everything wrong with them. INCLUDING having Vanessa Carlton in the video and credited on the song when all she did was go "mmmm-bop-bop-bop."

Like Hanson didn't already cover the whole Mmmbop thing. What the hell more does she think needs to be added?

I'll refrain from any jokes about Fatty Dread Man and his Gut of Goo.

Greatest hits => Classic

Not so much DUD as, say, STAB.

Sorry what??

I'd rather count sheep.

thank you.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38205000/jpg/_38205816_crows_pa_150.jpg http://www.artistdirect.com/Images/Sources/AMGPORTRAITS/music/portrait200/drp000/p014/p01479o6a7f.jpg

CLASSSSSSSSIC. I really don't get the hate. I just went through their discography today thinking I'd end up hating my 12-year-old self, but after listening to a number of tracks, I think my CC love was justified. OK, so Hard Candy/August and Everything After are mostly filled with bad Train/Dave Matthews-esque tracks, almost all of their songs on Recovering the Satellites and This Desert Life are brilliant...especially "Chelsea," "High Life," and "I'm Not Sleeping."

So, what's the problem? I see people complaining because they're 'mopey,' but what makes them any more mopey than Joy Division? Do you not believe that Duritz is really that sad? Or is his sadness just not as real? Or have you just heard the singles?

(p.s. - sample lyric for your response: "Some people will cut you 'til you're bleeding/but not me, 'cause I just want to do it to myself")

(and yes, I realize that I probably just nixed the little credibility I had)

Counting Crows can suck the dick off George W.

Considering as I love love love love "Hangin' Around," "Angels of the Silences," and "Long December" it's amazing I've never ever found myself compelled to investigate them beyond that. The dumpy dreads guy is a HUGE turnoff, you could put that guy in any band and I would be too embarassed for my indie cred to go near their records. Maybe when I'm 40 and lose my childish ways.

UGLY DORKS TRADING IN ROCK STAR STATUS FOR GRADE A TRIM Exhibit # 3,481,567
"Duritz has dated actresses Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, who appeared in the music video "Long December", Mary Louise Parker, Monica Potter (the Mrs Potter in "Mrs Potter's Lullaby" from This Desert Life) and Winona Ryder"

Not as good as the Cutting Crew.

The new one isn't half bad, if you're into the mopey, dreaded rock star thing. Certainly the best thing they've done since This Desert Life and almost makes me forgive that atrocious Shrek song and horrid Joni Mitchell cover.

I love "A Long December" so much. It's so sad and pretty. I remember once I was driving around on a gray, snowy day in Minneapolis and I was all bummed out and it came on the radio and it was perfect.

"A Long December" is all I know or need to know. I somehow missed it when it was new, then discovered it while shopping (!) a couple years back. I'm inside my brain looking at my feet in the soup aisle or whatever, and all of a sudden I realize how sad and beautiful the muzak raining down on me is this day, and it was "ALD."

I downloaded a few more tracks that were kind of dopey and sucky, so that was that, but man, I can still listen to "A Long December" five times in a row, no problem. It's one of my favorite songs ever, punches me in the gut and gives me the prettiest heartached every time, and I have no issue saying it either.

A separate discussion might be "was the sheer plaintive melancholic beauty of this song an accident?" and to that colloquy I would have nothing at all to contribute.

Still think they're classic. Something really special about that middle period. Was watching CRUEL INTENTIONS a few weeks ago, and "Colorblind" really hit me. Also, this one:

Counting Crows fans to thread plz

I used to like them and I have a fondness for certain songs, but I find the ballads unbearable, sorry.

ayo these dudes had some jams.

The first record came out when I was at the absolute zenith of my early-teen indie snobbery and yet if I happen to hear a single from that album over the speakers at a bar I get a small whiff of that nostalgic feeling I thought I would be above. Perhaps that makes them slightly superior to their contemporaries, or perhaps it is just the alcohol. A non-mean-spirited dud.

one of my bros is in a minimal-electronica band with the guitarist... sounds NOTHING like CCrows...

the acoustic half of across a wire is really really tight.

http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1yts9uZ3m1qc3wjlo1_500.jpg

"Long December" playing in the hotel restaurant where I'm trying to eat breakfast. Truly, this is the worst music of all fucking time.

So this is a pretty glowing review. I've never been into this band, but that write up is very enticing.

Any thoughts?

new record is pretty nice!, he announced to no one

"cover up the sun" really sweetly harnesses the vibes of folksy grateful dead

it's possible this is the least insufferable crows record bc almost none of the lyrics are about how duritz is an abandoned dreadlocked baby no one likes

justifying my continued affection for this band to someone the other day i said "it's a dude who desperately wants to be van morrison fronting a band who desperately wants to be the band and i think these are noble pursuits. it's just unfortunate that frontdude wants to invest the pursuit with his broetry"

and i say that still loving a lot of his lyrics. anyway this is my fifth post in a row in the counting crows c/d thread

the band themselves are fine. I actually am friends with someone who was a founding member of the band that morphed into CC (and who originally wrote Round Here); Charlie Gillingham had a (very short) stint in American Music Club; David Immerglück was in Camper Van Beethoven; Jim Bogios is a great drummer who has played with a lot of people, including Sheryl Crow and Mark Eitzel. The cringe has always been around Duritz' white boy dreadlocks and his (perceived) Van Morrison rip off vocal stylings, and his dating Jennifer Aniston.

is dating jennifer aniston cringe? why?

i guess that makes Justin Theroux cringe

iirc, the cringe wasn't so much that he dated Aniston, but that he famously dated Aniston and Courtney Cox during the heights of Friends mania.

maybe he just wanted some Friends

xp doesn't that make it more cringe of Aniston and Cox to have dated him during that time period?

I mean, sure. If their dating lives mean that much to you?

famously, Steve Albini had refused to date Anston, Cox AND Nicole Kidman around that time

none of that dating stuff is frankly interesting and I don’t know why it’s all that relevant. Guy dated some celebrities during the peak of his fame. Big shocker.

maybe he just wanted some Friends

hahaha

famously, Steve Albini had refused to date Anston, Cox AND Nicole Kidman around that time

hmmm
oh
hahaha

I had never heard a Counting Crows album, just various singles, but my neighbor always plays music loud while working in his yard so today was the day. Adam Duritz’ constant straining a couple notes above his range to add “urgency” or whatever became more and more annoying to me over the course of an hour. Supremely annoying.

About three years ago I listened to ~a lot~ of Counting Crows. In the midst of the pandemic I guess I found Adam's urgency comforting. Dunno. Anyway, I even went to a concert and sprung for decent seats. It was one of the most boring, paint-by-numbers shows I've ever seen. Haven't sought them out much since, but at the end of that phase, I summarized them like this:

OPO:
Murder of One

POX:
Anna Begins
Sullivan Street
Raining in Baltimore
A Murder of One
Children in Bloom
Recovering the Satellites
Holiday in Spain
Hanging Around
St. Robinson In His Cadillac Dream
Miami

Search: "Shallow Days", "Hanging Tree", "Good Time"
Destroy: "Girl from the North Country", "Mean Jumper Blues","Butterfly in Reverse", "Another Horsedreamer's Blues", "Amy Hit the Atmosphere", Underwater Sunshine, the unplugged part of Across a Wire, esp "Round Here"...

Classic or Dud: Yes

omg don't destroy "another horsedreamer's blues"

"miami" in a POX is very very correct tho

we had this exact conversation nine month sago

oh gawd...sorry! should've scanned up

theres a few songs on the butter miracle album that im really loving