One Year, 100 Albums: #39 Counting Crows "August and Everything After"

Counting Crows August and Everything After, 1993

If I'm going to do this post right, then I need to start of with about 15 seconds of silence.

...............

And we're into it. I got this album in a used record store in Brookline that was in this weird like mini, indoor, outlet mall. I'm not really sure how to describe it. You'd go in through some doors like you were going into any other store, but instead there were like 7 tiny stores. Maybe someone from Brookline knows what I'm talking about. The New England Comics was right next to it.

Anyways, I was familiar with the singles (Mr. Jones, Rain Kings) from the radio, kind of. I guess I knew Mr. Jones a little more and wanted to have a copy of the song for myself.

I listened to it a lot that trip to Boston and never really stopped. It's my rainy day album. It's one of those albums that rewards repeated listens because you learn all of Adam Duritz's pauses and phrasing and all of that. Of course all of that repeated listening will not do you much good at a CC concert, where he changes all of those pauses and phrasing and even the words to most of the songs. But I think he does it because he's feeling the emotion of the song and not limiting himself to something that he wrote more than 20 years ago. Which is a good lesson for all of us, I'd imagine.

There are so many great things about the songs on this one. In "Anna Begins", I love the stuttering drums and the bass and the way the chorus comes in like a ray of sunshine and the line "every time she's sneezes I believe it's love". In "Murder of One" I like the way it builds to that drum fill, and how he says the name of the band in the song. And I love everything about "Raining in Baltimore"

We're reaching the point in this countdown where I'm feeling like the order isn't right. Surely this is more than my 39TH favorite album. I don't know. It's such a good one. Wait until it looks like rain and then go get it and put it on repeat.

Here's the video for "Mr. Jones" because we shouldn't be ashamed of the 90's

Counting Crows - Anna Begins

Counting Crows - Raining in Baltimore

You can buy August and Everything After at Amazon, Amazon MP3, iTunes