Counting Crows Archives

Album: DGC Rarities
Year: 1994

I understand why August and Everything After was such a huge record, but it sure seemed seemed uneven to me. So as they became a huge band that shoulda been right up my alley, I was really lukewarm on Counting Crows.

On one hand, I’m never going to quibble with a Billboard Top Ten folk-rock hit single that cops from “Brown Eyed Girl” and features the phrase “I want to be Bob Dylan.” On the other was that the major labels were becoming experts at co-opting indie and it was hard to tell initially if Counting Crows were truly on our or some kind of folk-rock version of Bush or Stone Temple Pilots or (shudder) Live.

You can talk about genres, artists, albums, or even songs, but sometimes what keeps us coming back to music is the discovery of the transcendent musical moment. For me, “the moment” is the part of the song that fully and utterly engages me; the reason that I keep coming back to it.

I’m not necessarily talking about hooks here, because the purpose of a hook is the draw you into a song. I’m really talking more about traps: the part of a song that that keeps you there.

The is the fifth in a series. The first one had 25, the second one had 24, the third one had 23, the fourth one had 22.

Also: there is a slight — but not total – Christmas theme going on with this one. More of an arc, really. And a couple of mini-arcs, too!

Every single moment I’ve listed below kills me single every time I hear it.

Oh, and this isn’t in any kind of order, despite the numbering.

Counting Crows

Certain Songs #252: Counting Crows – “Einstein on the Beach (For an Eggman)”

21 Musical Moments To Die For