Counting Crows is better than your favorite band
An argument for August And Everything After... and everything after
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Let's get a few things out of the way: Yes, Adam Duritz's dreadlocks may be the stupidest hair in all of rock ’n’ roll. Yeah, he's cursed with a goofy body. No, you wouldn't be totally off base if you referred to him as “Rasta Grimace.” Counting Crows' signature hit "Mr. Jones" does, in fact, rely heavily on the lyric, "Sha la la la la la, yeah / Uh huh, yeah.” Duritz has made a habit of dating movie and pop stars that are seemingly way out of his league, including Mandy Moore and two-thirds of the female cast of Friends. And, yeah, it's pretty lame that Counting Crows have been reduced to opening for freaking Keith Urban tonight at Summerfest. All those easy cheap shots, let me make them for you.
But none of these mean that his band sucks. In fact, Counting Crows is better than your favorite band. Here's proof.
Exhibit A: Your favorite band fucking loves Counting Crows. For a group that's been something of a punchline for over a decade now, it’s wildly influential among artists who never even had the opportunity to trade their credibility for a chart-topper on the Shrek 2 soundtrack. This fact even transcends genre: Metalheads Between The Buried And Me named themselves after a line from "Ghost Train;” emo dreamboat Chris Carrabba from Dashboard Confessional brought Duritz in for a duet on "So Long, So Long" for 2006's Dusk And Summer; Ryan Adams recorded "Rosalie Come And Go,” an outtake from the Gold sessions (back when he was still good), with Duritz on backing vocals, and even featured him in the video for "Answering Bell;” most recently, Jersey punks and critical darlings The Gaslight Anthem borrowed the line "Maria came from Nashville with a suitcase in her hand" (and playfully switched around the bit about "looking like Elvis") from "Round Here" for the chorus of their "High Lonesome." When The Hold Steady was announced as the opener for Counting Crows' European tour, Pitchfork laughed about the incongruity of it all, wondering, "Are the Counting Crows cooler than any of us realized?" But fans familiar with both bands' respective bodies of work already knew they had a connection, from at least as far back as the 2006 song "Chips Ahoy!". Hold Steady singer Craig Finn seemingly lifted its plot wholesale—a girl whose dreams tell her what order the horses will come in at the races, who gets fucked up on drugs and lands herself in bad relationships—from "Another Horsedreamer's Blues,” a Counting Crows song about the exact same thing released a decade earlier.
Verdict: If Finn and the boys from the Gaslight Anthem weren't so self-conscious about their hipster fanbase, odds are they'd not only bite Duritz's lyrics, but grow his dreads, too.
Verdict: If Finn and the boys from the Gaslight Anthem weren't so self-conscious about their hipster fanbase, odds are they'd not only bite Duritz's lyrics, but grow his dreads, too.
Exhibit B: Across A Wire: Live In New York City. While many of the band's releases—especially those from the ’90s—feature instantly dated production, the underlying compositions themselves are remarkable. The first disc of this 1998 live set features Counting Crows' appearance on VH1 Storytellers. The stripped-down renderings of the band's hits (including "Round Here,” "Mr. Jones,” and "Angels Of The Silences”) reveal a solid core of songwriting that make a lot of today's neo-folkies pale in comparison. A guy like M. Ward or Conor Oberst would give his left nut to write songs that could top the charts and still be as sincere and powerful as the stripped-down, piano-banjo-accordion version of "Mr. Jones" featured here. There's more than one way to "Sha la la la la,” and on this album, it's clear that the band is flexible enough to allow them to play their hits in a way that makes them sound like boldly inventive covers.
Verdict: If Fleet Foxes had quietly covered nine Counting Crows songs for their debut and simply changed the titles, they would have gotten four-star and 9.0 ratings from everybody, and it would have sounded exactly like this.
Verdict: If Fleet Foxes had quietly covered nine Counting Crows songs for their debut and simply changed the titles, they would have gotten four-star and 9.0 ratings from everybody, and it would have sounded exactly like this.
Closing argument: Go ahead. Keep making jokes about Duritz’s hair and his weight, keep listening to artists that either bite his lyrics or beg him for guest appearances, and keep fawning over modern-day descendents who may as well just release a Counting Crows covers EP. Or, you can get over yourself and open up to a great fucking band—one that’s probably better than whatever you’re listening to now.
