Films About Ghosts: The Best Of...

Performer: Counting Crows
Artist: Sheryl Crow
Distributor: Universal Distribution

Notes: This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files. Counting Crows: David Immergluck (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, slide guitar, electric sitar); Dave Vickrey (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, banjo, sitar); Charles Gillingham (vocals, acoustic guitar, accordion, piano, Wurlitzer electric piano, Fender Rhodes electric piano, Omnichord, Hammond B-3 organ, chamberlain, Mellotron, synthesizer); Matt Malley (vocals, guitar, electric bass, double bass); Adam Duritz (vocals, harmonica, piano, tambourine, loo bells, samples); Jim Bogios (vocals, drums, percussion, loops); Steve Bowman (vocals, drums). Additional personnel: Sheryl Crow (background vocals). Producers include: David Bryson, T-Bone Burnett, Gil Norton, David Lowry, Dennis Herring. Counting Crows: Matt Malley (vocals, piano, bass guitar); Adam Duritz (vocals); David Bryson, David Immergl�ck, Dani Vickery (guitar); Charlie Gillingham (keyboards); Millard Powers (bass guitar); Jim Bogios, Ben Mize (drums). When Counting Crows emerged in the early 1990s with a folk-rock sound that seemed to hearken back to Van Morrison and Bob Dylan, they represented for many a welcome alternative to the dour, sludgy grunge nation that ruled the rock roost. With Adam Duritz's poetic sad-sack lyrics, Charlie Gillingham's Garth Hudson-like keyboard work, and a bedrock of jangling guitars, the Crows turned out a passel of fine albums in their first decade, each of which is well represented on this collection. The hits are obviously here; the self-referential breakout smash "Mr. Jones," the out-of-left-field soundtrack contribution "Big Yellow Taxi" (which found the band riding Joni's chestnut all the way to the singles charts), and the pulsating, Sheryl Crow-assisted "American Girls." With a band as substantive as this, however, it's the lesser-known album tracks that are the real meat in the meal, and there are plenty here, as well as a couple of previously unreleased tracks. The new songs, a live version of the Grateful Dead ballad "Friend of the Devil" and a typically catchy original composition "She Don't Want Nobody Near," suggest that the story of Counting Crows is far from over.

Uncut (2/04, pp.88-9) - 4 stars out of 5 - "[T]hey can reach peaks of sincere intensity."

In the midst of the early 1990s grunge boom, Counting Crows emerged as an alternative to the heavy, alienated sounds of the Kurt Cobain crowd. The California band harked back to the classic '60s folk-rock sounds of the Band, Bob Dylan, and Van Morrison. Poetic frontman Adam Duritz proved quirky and charismatic enough to endear himself to the millions who bought the group's debut album. Neatly avoiding the notorious sophomore jinx, the follow-up album was even more accomplished, if not as commercially successful.

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