This Desert Life | Counting Crows

This Desert Life | Counting Crows | Crows Are Entertaining

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This Desert Life

	This Desert Life Counting Crows Interscope Records, 1999 average customer review:based on 362 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

All Songs Were Written by the Band. Produced by David Lowery (Sparklehorse) and David Herring (Throwing Muses.) Includes Extra Track Not on the Us Version.

An American Classic

While listening to Counting Crows "This Desert Life", you're reminded in why Counting Crows are arguably America's greatest band going today. In this third effort since they released "August and Everything After", Counting Crows showed their ability to create a unique, fresh new sound without sounding like previous albums. Singer/songwriter Adam Duritz brilliant, true to life lyrics are existent once again and it's evident in the number of classics among these tracks.

Highlights are:

Mrs. Potter's Lullaby
High Life
Hanginaround
Colorblind
All My Friends
I Wish I Was a Girl

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Crows Are Entertaining

THIS DESERT LIFE is an interesting piece of work. Melodies, harmonies, and lyrics are the album's standing out traits. Counting Crows' piano player has a very interesting take on how to use the instrument to achieve unique musical sounds. The Pop/Rock group consists of guitars, basses, drums, keyboards, strings, and percussion. These instruments are used to their full extent to create an overall good Pop/Rock album.

Stand out tracks include:
"Hanginaround"
"Mrs. Potter's Lullaby"
"All My Friends"
"Colorblind"

Not Their Best But A Solid Effort

For Counting Crows third album the band starts off with a song that sounds like it was written specifically to receive radio airplay. Although the song "Hangingaround" was a pretty big hit, it is really significantly different from what Counting Crows are known for and just sounds to me like a kowtow to record industry pressure. I really never liked the song much at all with it's "we've got to have a hit" vibe. After that though things improve immensely with the almost 8 minute "Mrs. Potter's Lullaby" and "Amy Hit The Atmosphere" both of which are great songs. The rest of the album is up and down. Overall it is a mellower release than "Recovering the Satellites" as many of the songs are moody and reflective. Other highlights include "All My Friends And Lovers", and "Colorblind". This is probably the weakest of the Crow studio discs up to this point, but it is still a strong album for the most part.

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Classic American Rock

Third studio album from Counting Crows, "This Desert Life" has a handful of very good songs, a couple of decent songs and also a few misses.

"Hanging Around" was one of the singles, and it's both catchy and melodic, but the repetitive chaotic ending never really appealed to me. Much better is second track "Mrs Potter's Lullaby", an epic song that would have suited the great Van Morrison perfectly.

Other favourites are the REM sounding "Four Days", the dramatic "I Wish I was a Girl", the melancholy "Speedway" and the semi-acoustic closer "St. Robinson in his Cadillac Dreams" - great fat organ and mandolin.

The album as a whole may not be quite up to the high standards of the debut, but still a great album that will satisfy fans of the band. Classic American Rock!

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