Monday, February 25, 2008

August and Everything After by Counting Crows

I think that Adam Duritz is a supremely talented lyricist. The Dude loves Elvis Costello with an unseemly passion. He says that Costello is a ridiculously talented lyricist. I feel the same way about Duritz. He can turn a phrase like nobody's business. And even though he writes about the same themes over and over and over again, he always finds a new way to present them so that you don't feel like you've heard it all before.

August and Everything After, released in 1993, was Counting Crows major label debut. It has a more "alt country" feel than any of their other albums, I always think, with songs like "Rain King" featuring a more jangly guitar sound.

Though it's not my favorite album in their catalog, it does have a lot of solid songs, showing both the band's technical proficiency and Duritz's song writing capabilities. And with songs that hold up over 15 years, it hasn't come and gone like many other bands' first albums.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

New music a-go-go!

Two very promising developments on the New Music Front...

The Counting Crows released a single, "You can't count on me," in advance of a new album called Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings. It is lovely, jangly rock with emotionally bare lyrics--which is to say Counting Crows at their very best. The band hasn't strayed very far from their "signature sound" over the years, but that is, in my humblest of opinions, a good thing.

R.E.M.'s single "Supernatural Superserious" (try saying that ten times fast, right?) can also be heard, in advance of their album Accelerate which, like The Dude's book, has a release date of April 1, 2008. The single seems closer to early R.E.M. (read: Document or Life's Rich Pageant) than their last release, Around the Sun. This should please die-hard fans. I love what R.E.M. has done in the past few years as they try to find their post-Bill Berry sound, but I'm also glad that they seem to be going back to the formula that works best for them--guitar driven, politically minded rock 'n' roll.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Love is mix tape by Rob Sheffield

I've seen Rob Sheffield on many of those VH1 shows where they count down the top 100 or 50 of some genre of song. My favorite of those, of course, is the Top Soft Rock songs. But I digress...

Sheffield wrote and amazing book called Love is a mix tape: life and loss, one song at a time. It's this book about about falling in love and learning to lose love the most graceful way one can. It's about music and how music colors memories. It's about mix tapes and the 90s. Mostly, it's achingly perfect in tone and in execution.

It reminded me of Nick Hornby's High Fidelty for all of the right reasons. I fell in love with Renee and Rob and their relationship in much the same way that I fell in love with Hornby's Rob. And when I finished reading Sheffield's book, I handed it to my husband. I can only hope he enjoys it as much as I did.