the spot that I have for this era of music is very soft

Duff... wrote:

undo wrote:For the lame list:

This was a top 20 hit in the US? I have no memory of this at all!

undo wrote:

Michael K. wrote:I was at a Cal Bears basketball game that Adam Duritz - that's his name, right? - also attended. He got up and yelled during the halftime dancing part - UC Berkeley being sort of ahead of its time in terms of egalitarianism, had all types of different dance "troupes" and bodies featured at halftime - that "spandex is a privilege, not a right." That's the sort of sentence that sucks more and more every year.

What year was this? Just curious.

Somewhere around 2005-2007

Yeesh, definitely complicates that sad sensitive dreadlock guy persona.

undo wrote:
I definitely remember this being on Q101 when it was new. They definitely skipped over the entire first album but I suppose the station probably wasn't even alternative rock at that point yet, and it wasn't like anyone else in America was into the band before this. Anyone who tells you otherwise is absolutely lying. A couple years later I learned how to play most of the opening riffs of this song on guitar for some reason. I could never do it now.

I don't know how I found out that there was supposed to be something more to them than "Love Spreads" or Second Coming.

Yeah, Rock 103.5 played it near constantly and I was surprised to hear them mentioned on Sound Opinions ten years later as a band that people cared about.

I rode shotgun with a girl who was always listening to The Mix around that time and so I had to deal with this bullshit from time to time.

I have vivid memories of reading Rolling Stone magazine in the school library when I was in seventh or eighth grade--it had to be Rolling Stone because I know the library had it--and reading some review or article about Counting Crows and the author literally wrote a sentence that was like...

"You would trust Adam Duritz with your naked, 13 year-old daughter."

That's not 100% correct and maybe it's not even 50% correct but it's close enough, I swear I'm not making this up.

And over the years I've tried everything I can to find this once again because I simply have to read what it actually said. It's one of those holy grails I absolutely have to find and will never truly be at peace until I see it again.

It's possible that I might find it and discover that it was nowhere near as salacious and perverted as I'm imagining it. And in the process, realize that my mind has twisted the original sentence into something very different and very wrong, and I would have to live with the countless possible meanings of that. But that is a risk I'm willing to take.

Maybe I need to go to the library and be the first person in a decade to request to use the microfiche machine, maybe it might take me the whole day. Rollingstone.com does not faithfully archive their past like they want you to believe and Worldcat always lets me down when I'd try to use it for things like this.

Undo it's to your credit you're going to such lengths to check the credentials, but a microfiche search is beyond a reasonable amount of legwork for you. Just tell Adam that your nudist colony has decided to go with another babysitter.

undo wrote:

This is the corniest group in the world and I hate them but the ambience of this album opener always got to me and it's maybe the only song they have where I actually like the sound of his voice. The lyrics are the kind of poetry that message board wannabe-crit kids try to dunk on to sound smart but rarely raise any valid critiques against; the opening verse is pretty much perfect. No way I'm watching this music video though, sorry.

One of the worst posts I've made from this entire era of boarding. This is a terrible song.

Well, I walk in the air between the rain
Through myself and back again
Where? I don't know
Maria says she's dying
Through the door, I hear her crying
Why? I don't know

She parks her car outside of my house
And takes her clothes off
Says she's close to understanding Jesus
And she knows she's more than just a little misunderstood
She has trouble acting normal when she's nervous

Then she looks up at the building
Says she's thinking of jumping
She says she's tired of life
She must be tired of something

Women be crazy!

Woah oh oh
Sleeping children better run like the wind
Out of the lightning dream
Mama's little baby better get herself in
Out of the lightning

Counting Crows are never mentioned in the pantheon of 90s "hunger dunger dang" bands but if we're going to be real, they're like the only band that anyone should even mention when it comes to this trope.

Counting Crows were immediately compared to The Band and Van Morrison as soon as critics first heard them back in 1993. I never really heard The Band until a couple of years ago and it just shook me how hard that CC were mimicking them in every way imaginable. And that's fine but why was music so aggressively retrograde allowed to run rampant on alternative rock radio? Like I was going to know any better as a kid what was really going down here.



There was never anything less important than "revitalizing the sound and tradition of classic rock," just go tickle boomers buttholes with something that sounds familiar and affirming and they'll throw millions at you

More time has passed between now and August and Everything After (27 fucking years!) than between that album and The Band (24 years), they made millions larping dadrock bullshit and did it all the way to the bank! "If The Band were a color, they would be the drab poopy brown of this eponymous sophomore release," wrote Solid Little Rock Jams over a decade ago. That's fine, that's a normal stool color. If your shit looks like this, you really need to call a doctor!

In all seriousness, I do miss seeing these ORIGINAL MASTER RECORDING CDs in stores. Did they really sound any different from the original albums?

I do recognize the irony of me complaining about nostalgia in a thread that's all about nostalgia.

Thing is, I probably won't make enough from these posts to buy a mansion or even a single nice leather jacket.

undo wrote:

Duff... wrote:Was reminded of this song's existence in another thread.



I never cared for it.

I definitely remember this being on Q101 when it was new. They definitely skipped over the entire first album but I suppose the station probably wasn't even alternative rock at that point yet, and it wasn't like anyone else in America was into the band before this. Anyone who tells you otherwise is absolutely lying. A couple years later I learned how to play most of the opening riffs of this song on guitar for some reason. I could never do it now.

I don't know how I found out that there was supposed to be something more to them than "Love Spreads" or Second Coming. In 2000 I downloaded all the songs on some official "500 Best Rock Songs Ever" list and "I Wanna Be Adored" or "Fools Gold" was on there.

^Stories don't get much cooler than that.

Sometimes I listen to sports talk radio (the "Waddle and Silvy show" on ESPN 1000) and the other day I caught the very beginning of the broadcast and I swear they used "Love Spreads" as the opening music.

Not sure if they do this every single day or if it's just a random song. I tried listening to an episode online and instead it started with "Don't Fear the Reaper" so I really don't know what's going on here.

Man, both of those were mainstays on The Blaze/Rock 103 5 at the time. They ever throw on The Nixons or The Toadies?

I wanted to keep the aesthetic of this thread consistent and this really stretches it but here you go anyway.

This should have been one of my first posts itt. One of the purest slices of this aesthetic.

undo wrote:

This is the corniest group in the world and I hate them but the ambience of this album opener always got to me and it's maybe the only song they have where I actually like the sound of his voice. The lyrics are the kind of poetry that message board wannabe-crit kids try to dunk on to sound smart but rarely raise any valid critiques against; the opening verse is pretty much perfect. No way I'm watching this music video though, sorry.

I did not realize until today that the band The Counting Crows released a new album in 2021 and that the name of the album is Butter Miracle Suite One.

They were about to disappear or go down the Gin Blossoms/Verve Pipe route of exponentially diminishing returns and smaller venues but then Shrek happened and now they are with us for life

undo wrote:They were about to disappear or go down the Gin Blossoms/Verve Pipe route of exponentially diminishing returns and smaller venues but then Shrek happened and now they are with us for life

was I just putting these two bands in the same bucket

wtf