By JAY ROBERTS

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and underappreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

COUNTING CROWS – AUGUST AND EVERYTHING AFTER (1993)

“…and a child shall lead them”.

Now now, I’m not actually going all religious buffoon on you. But that phrase does flow more smoothly than “the daughter of one of my favorite thriller writers shall lead me into choosing this week’s album to write about.” Plus, I’m sure I’ll get some crap from her for referring to her as a child so cut me a little literary device slack, will ya?

Anyway, the daughter has been engaged in a 3rd round of album spotlights on her Facebook page and one of those albums was indeed August and Everything After, the debut album from Counting Crows. When I read her take on it, I was reminded that I had indeed bought the album myself on cassette when it was originally released. But other than the two hit singles, I don’t recall the album having much staying power with me and it found its way out of my music collection.

So after reading “the daughter’s” reaction to the album, I found myself at Purchase Street Records in New Bedford and wouldn’t you know it, they had a cassette copy of the album. So I decided to pick it up and give the album a new listen to see if time had changed my opinion about it. I mean, it has been more than three decades since the album was originally released, it is possible time has altered my take on things. Also, the fact that it has been more than 30 years…I really feel old now!

The first side of the album has the two big hits off of the album. “Round Here” opens up the album and then of course there is “Mr. Jones” which was a worldwide hit that seemed to be on the radio or MTV every five minutes back then.

For “Round Here”, technically referring to it as a hit is inaccurate because when it was originally released there were rules in place that barred it from charting. I’m not sure what the rules were that kept it off the charts because I can’t find anything online. As for the song itself, it starts off with pretty spare instrumentation and a kind of plaintive vocal from singer Adam Duritz. I liked the song back in the day but as I listened to it now, I realized it has been so long that I forgot how the song grew to have much more musically going on from the 2nd verse onward. That doesn’t alter the fact that I like the song still but it was interesting to realize what I’d forgotten about it.

As for “Mr. Jones”, before the song became so overplayed that I would dread hearing it start playing, it hit #5 in the US, #1 in Canada and #7 in France. It was, to say the least, a MONSTER hit for the band. Hell, the video even won the band the Best New Artist award at the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards. And while I still remember how much I hated to hear the song towards the end of its single cycle, as I listened to the song here, I remembered what I liked about it when I first heard it. It’s got a nice rollicking pace with Duritz providing a vocal performance that draws you in. The song’s chorus gets you a bit amped up too.

As for the other songs on the first side of the album, the track “Omaha” kind of just sat “there” for me. I was trying to get into the song but I just didn’t hear much to make me want to rewind the tape and play it again. I would say kind of the same thing about “Perfect Blue Buildings”. In fact, the lyric “Help me stay awake, I’m falling asleep…” kind of sums up my feeling about the song.

Maybe it is simply the fact that Counting Crows seemed more interesting to me when their songs were more in the uptempo vein. When the music is slow and contemplative, I get bored because the songs have a bit of “sameness” to it.

Of course, the song “Anna Begins” is a more interesting to me. While it does start off a tiny bit slow, there’s a good dose of thump from drummer Steve Bowman. The song does mostly hit a mid-tempo pacing thanks to the drumming and the rising and falling of the other musical parts.

The first side of the album closes out with the song “Time and Time Again” which finds the band slowing down once more as the track begins. But it does get more musically driven for the song’s chorus at least. What I noticed here is that the kind of whining yelp from Duritz really started to grate on my nerves by this point in the album. If I could tune out or at least down his vocal in this song by a half, I would’ve liked the song a lot more because musically this isn’t a bad track.

The second side of the album is where I ended up discovering that two more of the songs had been released as singles. They didn’t chart or anything but they’d gotten that individual treatment. I had probably checked out on the band before either song had gotten released which would account for why I didn’t know (or perhaps had forgotten) about that particular point.

The song “Rain King” opens up Side Two and it was the third single. The idea that I enjoy the band’s music more when it has a more rocking tone to the songs is given more credence because “Rain King” is uptempo throughout and I found myself digging the song quite a lot. As I listened I did recall this track from when I first heard the album but not that I’d heard it as a “single”. The vocals are more direct without quite so much whining and the fast pace was a audio feast for the ears. Hell, I probably enjoyed this song here and now even more than the two charting singles.

Counting Crows immediately slows things back down with the song “Sullivan Street”. I like the guitar line that fuels the song during its slower sections. The thing that made me enjoy the song more than I thought I would is that even though the vocals are slower in nature, they are delivered (mostly) in that same kind of direct fashion that you hear on “Rain King”. That is to say there is a lot less of that annoying and cloying emo whining than is on other songs.

Much like with “Omaha” on Side One of the album, I found myself just unable to get into and therefore appreciate what was going on with the song “Ghost Train”.

As much as I prefer when the material is more along a fast moving rock type song, I have to say that the piano driven “Raining in Baltimore” kind of blew me away. Between the heavy tone the piano gives the track and the impassioned vocal performance from Duritz, this track gained a new life with me as I listened to it for this article. It not only had me saying “Wow!” but also wondering why I’d forgotten the song in first place.

The album closes out with the song “A Murder of One”. The song was the fourth and final single released from August and Everything After. It’s got a solid rocking beat to it from the get-go. As I listened, the music carried me along and at one point I even found myself slapping my knees in time to the rhythm.

Confronting an album from the past that I’d heard, not really gotten into and sort of mostly forgotten about is part of the conceit of The Cassette Chronicles series to be sure. And the Counting Crows album August and Everything After certainly fits the bill. I guess the stuff I didn’t like as I listened to the album now is likely what drove me away from it back in the day. But those things are offset by what I do like after my new listening session. I’m going to definitely be keeping the album in my collection this time around. I won’t say that it will be in heavy rotation or anything but I do admit I’ve gained a new appreciation of the release as a whole.

NOTES OF INTEREST: The August and Everything After album sold 7 million copies and hit #4 on the album chart. When the album was reissued in 2007 it had 6 bonus tracks added to the end of the first disc. The second disc was a live concert recording.

One of my favorite singers, Maria McKee (from Lone Justice and a solo artist), is credited with providing backing vocals on the album.

Bonnie Aarons, the actress who appears in the video for the song “Round Here” would go on to appear in movies like The Conjuring 2 and The Nun.
The song “A Murder of One” would be used in an episode of the TV series Scrubs and The Bear.