The Counting Crows are one of those bands that seemingly achieved mainstream success overnight on the back of their hit single ‘Mr Jones’ – they managed to pull of a neat trick of combining complex and wrenching lyrics with a roots inflected take on alternative rock with a sumptuous production (thanks to T Bone Burnett) that hit the magical sweet spot between sounding nostalgic and contemporary just at that moment in the early ’90s. August and Everything After remains one of that decades strongest albums and while they’ve continued to pump out solid albums (albeit with an increasing number of years between them) since they’re probably still best known for that first flurry of tunes. Or singer Adam Duritz’ (now removed) dreadlocks and his ability to punch way above his weight with the ladies.

That strange DJ function on the streaming service most of use recently plucked a couple of their songs out of my listening history and I thought throwing up a few of there’s would serve as a toe back into posting here.

Perfect Blue Buildings

August and Everything After is just an exquisite combo of rich ballads, brilliant melodies and cracking musicianship all pinned down by Adam Duritz’ lyrics and voice. There’s a particularly strong trifecta in the middle of the album with ‘Perfect Blue Buildings’, ‘Anna Begins’ and ‘Time and Time Again’ but ‘Perfect Blue Buildings’ become one of the groups most beloved songs and there’s something about that line ‘It’s 4:30 A.M. on a Tuesday, it doesn’t get much worse than this’ that hits the sweet spot for me.

A Murder of One

After an album of relatively serious, angsty ballads and a run for Springsteenism on ‘Omaha’, ‘A Murder of One’ is a joyous, upbeat way to end an album and a cracking tune to boot.

Angels of the Silences

How do you follow up the success of August and… ? Recovering The Satellites is a bloody good album. Problem is it’s also a pretty long and heavy one – feeling every minute of its near hour length at times. It’s got a lot of great tunes on it but I always found it too much for one sitting and a lot of the quiet joy that lives between the lines of August.. missing here. ‘Angels of the Silences’ always hits the spot though with its urgency

I Wish I Was A Girl

Third album This Desert Life is an underrated gem in Counting Crows’ catalogue – after the overwrought writing and weight of their second album, it’s a tighter, more professional effort that relatively zips along at 11 songs but each of them are very well-crafted and benefit immensely from both a lighter tone and Duritz seemingly having reigned tendency to over-emote. Hooks and cracking melodies abound but I’ve always loved the lyric and delivery of “You dive into the traffic rising up, and it’s so quiet, you’re surprised and then you wake.”

1492

Those first three albums still find their way into my ears a lot. Their fourth Hard Candy was pretty solid but I kind of drifted away from Counting Crows and, it seems, so did many. After another few years between albums they dropped the double album Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings in 2008. They’ve dropped another one and a half studio albums in the 15 years since but I wouldn’t be able to tell you anything about them. ‘1492’ – all dirty guitars, energy and frenzied lyrics – has been a favourite since I heard it and one I never reach for the skip button over.