Published on Dec 18, 2002
Counting Crows is one of those bands with such a distinct
approach to music that people generally end up either loving them
or hating them. For me, lead singer/chief composer Adam Duritz’s
poetic lyrics (or is it lyrical poetry?) have always had the power
to overcome any other doubts I may have had. But the band’s fourth
studio album, the sweet and difficult
Hard Candy, doesn’t make the equation any easier to
solve.
The first time I listened to this disc, I thought it was the
best thing the band had recorded. It seemed like everything had
come together — the arrangements are varied and complex, the
lyrics sharp as ever, and the entire album feels polished and
finished, with all musical details attended to and real variety in
the arrangements. It seemed producer Steve Lillywhite (of U2 and
Dave Matthews fame) had given the group the final nudge they need
to become a fully realized rock and roll band possessed of all the
skills necessary to rock with both passionate fervor and mature
precision.
And that still sounds like the case to me on the early part of
this disc. The kick-off title track truly is one of the best cuts
they’ve ever recorded, a ringing piece of Byrds/Petty jangle-rock
with a lyric that will hit home for anyone who’s ever felt
nostalgic in the present for a relationship that caused them pain
in the past. Following it with the sarcastically upbeat “American
Girls” is a startling move for a band whose bread and butter is
slow, heart-rending laments, but it works, and there’s plenty of
the latter down the road.
A little farther along, Duritz’s career-long obsession with his
own insomnia continues in the simply gorgeous “Goodnight LA,” in
which he finally seems to get to the root of the problem: “And what
brings me down now is love / Cause I can never get enough.” Not an
easy thing to confess, but he does it with complete conviction.
Other highlights include the supple melodies and rich harmonies of
midtempo numbers like “If I Could Give All My Love -or- Richard
Manuel Is Dead” (a track whose arrangement appropriately smacks of
The Band) and the steady-building, multi-layered “Up All
Night.”
The real test, though, comes in the middle of the disc, where
the band attempts several experiments. The use of a string section
and exotic percussion on the slow-building “Miami” works well,
giving the song a strong trajectory that sweeps you along with it.
But the horns and strings on “Butterfly In Reverse” only serve to
underline the basic problem: the lyric, which sees Duritz
collaborating with alt.country wunderkind Ryan Adams, just doesn’t
work. As a result, the whole song collapses like a balloon with a
slow leak.
Serving as a microcosm of the entire album, “New Frontier” is a
song I’ve changed my mind about twice. At first its totally
uncharacteristic whining ’80s synthesizer seemed so annoying it
nearly blocked out my appreciation of the song’s clever lyric about
the superficiality of American pop culture. Then the lyric won out
for awhile and I decided the synthesizer was just the right musical
touch for the subject matter. Then it started annoying the hell out
of me again. Moral of the story: experiments can blow up in your
face sometimes.
The last third of the album is a good news-bad news affair. It’s
anchored by a pair of classic Crows laments, slow, heart-rending
numbers full of vivid images and brilliant twists of phrase.
“Carriage” and especially “Black And Blue” take you to the
emotional core of the Crows’ roots-confessional genre of music and
score big points for the home team. The already-praised “Up All
Night” would have been a strong closer, but instead they finish
with “Holiday In Spain,” a languorous, self-pitying track that
rubbed me the wrong way.
Among the reasons this album sounds so much fuller than previous
Crows efforts is that the band, initially with one guitarist among
its five members, now boasts three among its seven (Dave Bryson,
Dan Vickrey and newest member David Immergluck, formerly of Camper
Van Beethoven and John Hiatt’s band). It’s got to be a little tough
on these three, trying to figure out where they fit into each song,
but the variety of textures and tones they’re able to produce with
their different styles of playing is outstanding.
Hard Candy is a fitting name for this album, given its
frequent brilliance and occasional rough spots. One of the things
that separates great bands from the rest of the pack, though, is
their willingness to take risks. The Crows take some here, and
while I’m not a hundred percent impressed with the results, I
salute the effort. This is definitely an album worth owning.