Counting Crows - Underwater Sunshine - Printable Version +- Music Discussion (https://www.music-discussion.com) +-- Forum: Music Discussion (https://www.music-discussion.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=4) +--- Forum: Alternative (https://www.music-discussion.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=11) +--- Thread: Counting Crows - Underwater Sunshine (/showthread.php?tid=6876)

Counting Crows - Underwater Sunshine - Music Head - 12-04-2012 online listen don't usually do covers albums only recalled 3 of these and being a Crows fan, I made an exception those 3: Amie (Pure Prairie League), Ooh La La (Faces), You Ain't Goin' Nowhere (Dylan) fair material but just misses the list 1.6 from me and a converted 1.8 from the pros at allmusic from the album - Untitle (Love Song) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_130NUSGNU released Apr 10th, 2012 Bio - from allmusic With their angst-filled hybrid of Van Morrison, the Band, and R.E.M., Counting Crows became an overnight sensation in 1994. Only a year earlier, the band was a group of unknown musicians, filling in for the absent Van Morrison at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony; they were introduced by an enthusiastic Robbie Robertson. Early in 1993, the band recorded their debut album, August and Everything After, with T-Bone Burnett. Released the fall, it was a dark and somber record, driven by the morose lyrics and expressive vocals of Adam Duritz. The only up-tempo song, "Mr. Jones," became their ticket to stardom, and Counting Crows enjoyed a significant amount of success throughout the '90s and beyond. What made Counting Crows unique was how they were able to balance Duritz's tortured lyrics with the sound of the late '60s and early '70s; it made them one of the few alternative bands to appeal to listeners who thought that rock & roll died in 1972. Recovering the Satellites followed in 1996, and "A Long December" was a Top 10 hit on both the Modern Rock and Adult Top 40 charts. The band issued the two-disc Across a Wire: Live in New York in 1998, and the following year saw the release of Counting Crows' third studio album, This Desert Life. In the midst of recording and collaborating with Ryan Adams on his sophomore album, Gold, Duritz joined his band in the studio as well. The fruit of those sessions was the Steve Lillywhite-produced fourth album, Hard Candy. The next year saw the release of the best-of Films About Ghosts, and in 2004 Counting Crows reminded fans of their ability to write a hit single with "Accidentally in Love," which appeared on the Shrek 2 soundtrack. Two years later, New Amsterdam: Live at Heineken Music Hall, recorded from a show on February 6, 2003, was made available to the public. In 2008 the band issued Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings, a concept record divided into two halves; the more rowdy, upbeat rock of Saturday night soundtracks and the mellow alt-country side of Sunday morning hangovers. In 2009 the band parted ways with their longtime major label home Geffen Records, but continued to tour and write new material as feverishly as ever. Duritz struggled with mental problems and prescription drug addiction following the split with Geffen, working on solo material which he released in part online. 2011 saw the release of August and Everything After: Live at Town Hall, the band's third official live album, and in 2012 the band offered up Underwater Sunshine (Or What We Did On Our Summer Vacation), a collection of cover songs to tide fans over until the release of an album of new material. Album Review - from allmusic The covers album is a strange beast. Collections of songs by bands who were key influences or wayward distractions for the band doing the covers, these albums usually go one of two ways. There are the reverently devotional ones that genuinely wish to pay homage to original inspirations and then there are the between-proper-albums placeholders full of filler and oddball versions of unexpected or random songs. On their sixth studio album, Underwater Sunshine (Or What We Did on Our Summer Vacation), the Counting Crows fall into the nicer of the two categories, offering up 15 cover tunes, ranging from the ubiquitous to the obscure. Thankfully, the band spares us any completely stylistically incongruent numbers (reference The Spaghetti Incident? by Guns N' Roses for an embarrassing example of this), and even the more obscure songs here sound like formative shapers of the band Counting Crows became. Genuflecting liner notes back this up, with long stories from various bandmembers with anecdotes about everything from having a moment of Zen watching Dinosaur Jr. perform on Letterman for the first time to touring with Alex Chilton. The bandmembers clearly believe in these songs with all their hearts, and it shows in the performances. Their take on the dual harmonies of Teenage Fanclub's "Start Again" and the Big Star classic "The Ballad of El Goodo" highlight their love of jangly rock, while covers of more country-leaning artists like Gram Parsons and Crows side project Tender Mercies are approached with equal verve. The band sounds at home in its interpretations and as committed to these covers as any of its own songs, possibly even too much so. Somewhere around the middle of Underwater Sunshine it becomes hard to remember this isn't a record of Counting Crows songs. The combination of close-to-the-vest song choices and the band's signature nuances (primarily singer Adam Duritz's instantly recognizable warbles and soulful emotings) tends to compress the songs into identical waves of the same spirited feelings over and over. Even when the band lets relatively loose on a drunken sendup of Dylan's "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere," the song never threatens to get out of line, and even the hooting and hollering seem contained. A cover of '80s college rockers Sordid Humor's "Jumping Jesus" is the album's darkest moment, and as a relatively unknown song just sounds like a newly unearthed Counting Crows dirge. That said, the Counting Crows sounding a lot like themselves when covering their most-loved bands isn't all that bad of a thing. They could have phoned it in completely on an in-between record like this, and there's enough energy here to appeal to both fans and non-obsessives. For all its heart, though, Underwater Sunshine still lacks the unborrowed inspiration necessary to come out of the gates as a stand-alone record. Even with its positive attributes, the record still turns to pleasant filler somewhere around their version of Rod Stewart's "Ooh La La" and never quite recovers. Track Listing 1. Untitled (Love Song) 2. Start Again 3. Hospital 4. Mercy 5. Meet on the Ledge 6. Like Teenage Gravity 7. Amie 8. Coming Around 9. Ooh La La 10. All My Failures 11. Return of the Grievous Angel 12. Four White Stallions 13. Jumping Jesus 14. You Ain't Goin' Nowhere 15. The Ballad of El Goodo