In thinking about this column, I considered a number of themes. I could have called it, “Why Counting Crows Are Underrated.” Underrated seemed the wrong word, and “overlooked” briefly came to mind. The most apt title might have been, “Counting Crows Are a Band That I Have Recently Taken Interest In.”
In the September issue of The Believer, Dylan-drooler Greil Marcus wondered aloud why it is so uncool to like Counting Crows these days. (I'm wondering why Marcus is teaching at the University of Minnesota, and holding a number of discussions on campus, the year after I graduate...) The problem may have less to do with the band themselves, and more to do with how music is consumed. Generally speaking (extremely general), there are two major kinds of music fans out there right now: One listens to whatever is on the radio, or whoever makes the final two or three on American Idol. The other listens to anything that isn’t on the radio, and couldn’t possibly be seen as mainstream.
There are, of course, gray areas both between and on either side of these wild generalizations. But, unless you are Radiohead, it seems impossible to cross both lines, particularly among young listeners (A statement open to debate, naturally). The term indie has been appropriated by so many camps that it seems devoid of any meaning. Obscurity (I got here first) is as important to some as popularity (I'm glad the rest of you are here) is to others. Meanwhile, bands that once held both critical and popular sway have mostly been abandoned by both extremes.
This most recent (there have been many others) major backlash against mainstream music was inevitable, especially in the rock world. The 1990s saw speculation rule as major record companies threw millions of dollars into bringing along alternative rock groups. Rock music has always exemplified “coolness” in the music world. Not necessarily the hip, smooth coolness of jazz, or the slick, bright coolness of pop, but an edgy, dirty, hole-in-the-knees-of-your-jeans coolness. Shortly after Nirvana (on the heels of and in debt to REM, the Replacements, insert 1980s college rock band here…) brought grunge into the mainstream, labels looked to package so-called alternative-rock music and sell it to the masses. The glut of music videos is perhaps the most telling aspect of the time period. Millions and millions were spent putting rock singles on heavy-rotation on MTV. Labels and bands invested hugely and for a while, were paid huge dividends.
Eventually though, the rock-cool scene wore off, and music got online, where people could get it for free, and that single could be downloaded without having to pay for the rest of the album. There was a certain excitement about music videos. Going back and watching videos from Smashing Pumpkins, Stone Temple Pilots, and others reminds one that these were incredible pieces of film in their own right. Big-name directors worked with large budgets to make legitimately beautiful four and five minute videos. Counting Crows were one of the DGC projects (Nirvana, Teenage Fanclub, an old professor of mine's near success, Rex Daisy), and they put out a number of videos themselves.
The breaking point between when it was OK to like rock music and when it wasn't OK is hard to pin down; it might have been the Wallflowers, who have accumulated a group of haters hard to comprehend. The combination of roots-rock and Jakob Dylan’s polarizing blue eyes was more than many could take. Or maybe it was the one-off bands like Fuel and Semisonic, who’s huge singles were accompanied by underwhelming albums, and poor follow-ups. Either way, the bottom fell out from under video-rock, and almost 10 years later, there has been little healing.
Counting Crows represent a wonderful intersection of mainstream popularity, critical acclaim, and hardcore cultish following. Their debut, 1993’s August and Everything After, was received with excitement and accolades. They played at the 1994 Rock ‘N Roll Hall of Fame inductions, an incredible feat for a recently unknown group. They also hit the airwaves hard with the single “Mr. Jones.” David Letterman didn’t even try to hide his man-love for the band when they appeared on The Late Show. They made a bunch of videos, and toured the world.
Although their second single, “Einstein on the Beach (For an Eggman)” reached number one on the Modern Rock charts, and their second album, Recovering the Satellites, also peaked at number 1, there were detractors from the beginning. Adam Duritz, for all his vocal qualities, will be viewed as a whiner by many. And that’s without listening closely to his lyrics, which will be delved into further. With each album the band moved further from roots-roots into pop-pop. We’ve seen plenty of groups become more polished and more produced as they get older, or more experienced, or more nuanced (again, refer to REM, the Replacements…even Indie- and critic-darlings The Hold Steady have been criticized recently for, essentially, spending too much time in the studio). Whatever.
In 2008, it is cooler to be unknown than to have a number one single. Counting Crows certainly fit neither role, and they are decidedly uncool. Adam Duritz recently revealed that he has battled depression and a dissociative disorder for most of his life. Listening to his lyrics from any album in the bands catalogue should make this disclosure less than shocking. The third song on August and Everything After, “Mr. Jones,” bares themes that have played out through out the rest of Duritz’s writing: dreams of stardom, realities of loneliness, and constant introspection. In 1993, Duritz was on-the-verge; he was on the verge of stardom, success, and by the nature of his writing, execution of some emotional emptiness.
“Mr. Jones” exemplifies Durtitz’s, and so many others’, hope that stardom would bring him happiness; “When everybody loves me, I will never be lonely.” The second half of this line, “I will never be lonely,” is repeated twice more. The song ends “Mr. Jones and me, we’re gonna be big stars…” Loneliness is a continued theme on the following track, “Perfect Blue Buildings.” The song is chillingly personal, and in the final minute of the song Durtiz wonders again and again, “How am I gonna keep myself away from me?”
If August and Everything After is a call for companionship, love, and fame, Recovering the Satellites is a direct response from post-fame Duritz to his former self, the one who just a few years earlier wanted nothing but to be known and loved. After an eclectic debut complete with accordions, mandolins, and the sparse drumming of Steve Bowman, Counting Crows second album is a rock album, full of heavy guitars, and new drummer Ben Mize’s (who plays with a force not in line with the rest of the band, always waiting to burst out of the mid-tempo rockers; imagine Dave Grohl being forced to play “Something in the Way” over and over) heavy toms and constant symbol crashing. The group added a second guitarist, Dan Vickrey, and he brought an electric side to the band that was previously shrouded in roots-rock sensibility.
But, like August, Recovering the Satellites is a delicate balance of full-band noise and lower, piano-driven introspections by Duritz. On the first album, Duritz was addressing potential fame and potential lovers. “Goodnight Elizabeth,” the fifth track on Satellites, brings the listener to the aftermath of both relationships, where Duritz is left holding the pieces of what can only be presumed was once a healthy affair. Duritz has lost a lover as a result of his new lifestyle. He expertly places us on the road (and in distress) in the first line: “I was wasted in the afternoon, waiting on a train/ I woke up in pieces and Elizabeth had disappeared again.” He is acutely aware of his dilemma; as he is traveling the country, living his live out on stages, and cannot do anything about it. Duritz has been quoted many times saying that he views being a musician as a personal must; he more or less feels that it is not only his calling in life, but something that he has to do. This is more eloquently stated in the song: “Some of us are dancers on the midway, we roam from town to town/ I hope that everybody can find a little flame/ me, I say my prayers then light myself on fire, and walk out on the wire once again.” He got the fame he wanted, and is realizing that will not solve his problems, and might even cause new ones.
The band’s third album took another three years to complete. This Desert Life represents a step in yet another direct. It regains a more folksy and country feel. As AllMusic’s Stephan Thomas Erlewin points out, the album is not without edge, but it is crafted beyond the reaches of the previous two albums. There are more hooks, and far catchier melodies. Still, many consider This Desert Life to be yet another disappointing follow-up to August.
Duritz manages to get out of his own head a few times on This Desert Life, especially in character studies “Amy Hit the Atmosphere” and “St. Robinson and His Cadillac Dream.” Still, he is as introspective as ever, and the perfect movie soundtrack song, “Colorblind,” is another reminder. Though it is more wordy and flush with visceral sentiment than most of Duritz’s songs, it harkens back to Duritz’s continued search for love, companionship, intimacy. “I am covered in skin/ no one gets to come in/ Pull me out from inside/ I am folded, and unfolded, and unfolding.”
On the band’s fourth studio effort, Hard Candy, Duritz actually delves further into his own psyche. But, to the chagrin of those already fading hardcore fans, the album is the most polished yet. The album itself is a piece of candy, sonically. The hooks have hooks. The rollicking piano work of Charlie Gillingham is pushed further to the front than ever. Matthew Sweet and Sheryl Crow make appearances.
The album is much deeper than a first listen can indicate. “American Girls,” the big single from Hard Candy, has largely been mislabeled as a throw-away radio hit, devoid of any real sentiment. But in typical Duritz-fashion, it is not a Brian Wilson-ode to the blonde beauties roller-blading across the beaches of Los Angeles. Instead the song is about Duritz. It is another window into the messed up mind of a guy who so desperately craves love, intimacy, and physicality, and is continually drawn into the traps of cunning partners who leave him back where he started: alone. “American Girls” is perhaps pointing the fingers at these girls.
Counting Crows followed Hard Candy with about five years solid of touring. Six years later, they finally released 2008’s Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings. The newest album is the first with drummer Jim Bogios, who carries much of Mize’s rock style, but maybe without the same power. Multi-instrumentalist Millard Powers steps in on bass.
Fans of Hard Candy (the few, the proud) will find that Counting Crows have again taken a diagonal step. Gone are the pop frills, replaced mostly by straight-ahead rock. The title of the album hints at one of the key elements of their sound: each album has been a balance of loud and soft, of multi-track, layered instrumentation and barebones emotion. Duritz not only continues to explore his favorite themes on this album, but he unabashedly borrows from his own songs. As he tells it, the line “I dream of Michelangelo while I’m lying in my bed,” which appeared in the song “Angels of Silences,” was actually lifted from a song that he had spent years trying finish. That song apparently was finally wrapped up all these years later, and appears on the Sunday Mornings half of the album, aptly titled “When I Dream of Michelangelo.”
The difference between this album and others is more structural than anything. While the previous efforts felt like a collection of Duritz’s emotional musings captured in three and four minute snippets, Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings feels more like a collection of songs, in the strictest sense. The songs have more beginnings, middles, and endings than before. Perhaps Duritz has embraced a storytelling side that was previously shrouded in his own introspection. Not lost are Duritz’s excellent vocal melodies and performance, and the excellent support of his band mates.
The simple fact is that for whatever ability to connect with his own emotions Duritz possesses, and in turn, express them in a way that any close-listener can easily and sometimes painfully relate to, he is surrounded by a band of tight and virtuosic musicians. And Duritz himself is a pop leaning writer. Counting Crows like hooks. They like harmonies and loud guitars and drum fills and bridges and guest vocalists. There is a sheen over many of their songs. If Duritz had instead been a solo artist, a man with a guitar and his voice alone, he could very easily have been appreciated in the vein of an Eliot Smith. His lyrics are that powerful. But, alas, he plays with a pop band, a rock band, and they dance and they solo, and they wear new clothes.
So while Carrie Underwood and Lil’ Whomever push out more of the same surface-level muck, and a bunch of American Appearlites ride eternally on their floor toms while moaning at the ceiling in complete earnestness, Counting Crows will languish (with fat pay checks and a million frat boy fans) somewhere between. They are still remembered as that “Mr. Jones”-band by many, certainly. Younger people might see them as that “American Girls”-band. Fortunately for them, they came up when it was still cool to be on MTV, and it was OK for millions of people to like your music.
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