The covers album is a strange beast. Collections of songs by bands who were key influences or wayward distractions for the band doing the covers, these albums usually go one of two ways. There are the reverently devotional ones that genuinely wish to pay homage to original inspirations and then there are the between-proper-albums placeholders full of filler and oddball versions of unexpected or random songs. On their sixth studio album, Underwater Sunshine (Or What We Did on Our Summer Vacation), the Counting Crows fall into the nicer of the two categories, offering up 15 cover tunes, ranging from the ubiquitous to the obscure. Thankfully, the band spares us any completely stylistically incongruent numbers (reference The Spaghetti Incident? by Guns N' Roses for an embarrassing example of this), and even the more obscure songs here sound like formative shapers of the band Counting Crows became. Genuflecting liner notes back this up, with long stories from various bandmembers with anecdotes about everything from having a moment of Zen watching Dinosaur Jr. perform on Letterman for the first time to touring with Alex Chilton. The bandmembers clearly believe in these songs with all their hearts, and it shows in the performances. Their take on the dual harmonies of Teenage Fanclub's "Start Again" and the Big Star classic "The Ballad of El Goodo" highlight their love of jangly rock, while covers of more country-leaning artists like Gram Parsons and Crows side project Tender Mercies are approached with equal verve. The band sounds at home in its interpretations and as committed to these covers as any of its own songs, possibly even too much so. Somewhere around the middle of Underwater Sunshine it becomes hard to remember this isn't a record of Counting Crows songs. The combination of close-to-the-vest song choices and the band's signature nuances (primarily singer Adam Duritz's instantly recognizable warbles and soulful emotings) tends to compress the songs into identical waves of the same spirited feelings over and over. Even when the band lets relatively loose on a drunken sendup of Dylan's "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere," the song never threatens to get out of line, and even the hooting and hollering seem contained. A cover of '80s college rockers Sordid Humor's "Jumping Jesus" is the album's darkest moment, and as a relatively unknown song just sounds like a newly unearthed Counting Crows dirge. That said, the Counting Crows sounding a lot like themselves when covering their most-loved bands isn't all that bad of a thing. They could have phoned it in completely on an in-between record like this, and there's enough energy here to appeal to both fans and non-obsessives. For all its heart, though, Underwater Sunshine still lacks the unborrowed inspiration necessary to come out of the gates as a stand-alone record. Even with its positive attributes, the record still turns to pleasant filler somewhere around their version of Faces' "Ooh La La" and never quite recovers. The covers album is a strange beast. Collections of songs by bands who were key influences or wayward distractions for the band doing the covers, these albums usually go one of two ways. There are the reverently devotional ones that genuinely wish to pay homage to original inspirations and then there are the between-proper-albums placeholders full of filler and oddball versions of unexpected or random songs. On their sixth studio album, Underwater Sunshine (Or What We Did on Our Summer Vacation), the Counting Crows fall into the nicer of the two categories, offering up 15 cover tunes, ranging from the ubiquitous to the obscure. Thankfully, the band spares us any completely stylistically incongruent numbers (reference The Spaghetti Incident? by Guns N' Roses for an embarrassing example of this), and even the more obscure songs here sound like formative shapers of the band Counting Crows became. Genuflecting liner notes back this up, with long stories from various bandmembers with anecdotes about everything from having a moment of Zen watching Dinosaur Jr. perform on Letterman for the first time to touring with Alex Chilton. The bandmembers clearly believe in these songs with all their hearts, and it shows in the performances. Their take on the dual harmonies of Teenage Fanclub's "Start Again" and the Big Star classic "The Ballad of El Goodo" highlight their love of jangly rock, while covers of more country-leaning artists like Gram Parsons and Crows side project Tender Mercies are approached with equal verve. The band sounds at home in its interpretations and as committed to these covers as any of its own songs, possibly even too much so. Somewhere around the middle of Underwater Sunshine it becomes hard to remember this isn't a record of Counting Crows songs. The combination of close-to-the-vest song choices and the band's signature nuances (primarily singer Adam Duritz's instantly recognizable warbles and soulful emotings) tends to compress the songs into identical waves of the same spirited feelings over and over. Even when the band lets relatively loose on a drunken sendup of Dylan's "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere," the song never threatens to get out of line, and even the hooting and hollering seem contained. A cover of '80s college rockers Sordid Humor's "Jumping Jesus" is the album's darkest moment, and as a relatively unknown song just sounds like a newly unearthed Counting Crows dirge. That said, the Counting Crows sounding a lot like themselves when covering their most-loved bands isn't all that bad of a thing. They could have phoned it in completely on an in-between record like this, and there's enough energy here to appeal to both fans and non-obsessives. For all its heart, though, Underwater Sunshine still lacks the unborrowed inspiration necessary to come out of the gates as a stand-alone record. Even with its positive attributes, the record still turns to pleasant filler somewhere around their version of Faces' "Ooh La La" and never quite recovers. false 2024-02-27 21:29:57 6.5 2012 2012-04-10 2012-04-10 72 Alternative Rock Americana Folk Rock Pop Rock Rock Soft Rock Roots Rock 111691 2114130 f5d9e225-f79b-492e-ae69-630a2010d77a a0327dc2-dc76-44d5-aec6-47cd2dff1469 64b42c32-953b-423a-b11b-e3195adf866f /media/data/media5/Music/Counting Crows/Underwater Sunshine (or What We Did on Our Summer Vacation) (2012)/folder.jpg Counting Crows AlbumArtist Counting Crows Artist Counting Crows Counting Crows 1 05:05 2 03:33 3 03:08 4 03:30 5 03:36 6 05:10 7 04:33 8 02:59 9 04:37 10 04:37 11 04:22 12 04:00 13 03:04 14 04:19 15 04:49 16 04:18 17 05:52 Counting Crows is an American rock band from the San Francisco Bay Area, California. Formed in 1991, the band consists of guitarist David Bryson, drummer Jim Bogios, vocalist Adam Duritz, keyboardist Charlie Gillingham, multi-instrumentalist David Immerglück, bass guitarist Millard Powers, and guitarist Dan Vickrey. Past members include the drummers Steve Bowman (1991–1994) and Ben Mize (1994–2002), and bass guitarist Matt Malley (1991–2005). Counting Crows gained popularity following the release of its first album, August and Everything After (1993). With the breakthrough hit single "Mr. Jones" (1993), the album sold more than 7 million copies in the United States. The band received two Grammy Awards nominations in 1994, one for "Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal" (for "Round Here") and one for "Best New Artist". The follow-up album, Recovering the Satellites, reached number one on the US Billboard 200 album chart and reached number one in several other countries. All but one of their subsequent albums reached the top 10 on the Billboard 200 list. Their hit singles include the aforementioned "Mr. Jones" as well as "Rain King", "A Long December", "Hanginaround", and a cover version of Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi". Counting Crows received a 2004 Academy Award nomination for the single "Accidentally in Love", which was included in the film Shrek 2. The band has sold more than 20 million albums and is known for its dynamic live performances. Billboard has also ranked the band as the 8th greatest Adult Alternative Artist of all time. The band's most recent full album, Somewhere Under Wonderland, was released in 2014. They released a four-song EP in 2021 titled Butter Miracle:Suite One, which is expected to be expanded to a full album. Collective Sounds