Yeah, yeah; I know the elitest snobs will have something to say about such a mainstream band appearing on this blog, but cmon… who here can honestly claim that Counting Crows didn’t soundtrack much of their life?

While Hard Candy was certainly a slight falter in the Counting Crows trajectory (apart from, of course, the Ryan Adams-co-written “Butterfly In Reverse”), the band has earned it’s place in any pantheon of greats.

And I’ve been desperately, desperately hoping for their fifth studio album, “Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings” (due out March 29th), to show a return to the form of “August and Everything After”; or, failing that, at least to “This Desert Life”.

Given the two tracks I’ve just heard, I’m not certain that this will be of August-like awesomeness. But perhaps it shouldn’t have to be.

Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings is a themed double-album; the first, “Saturday Night” half, is ostensibly the rock side of the album, with the second, “Sunday Morning” half showcasing the more soft-spoken, acoustic side.

Adam Duritz has said of the album that:

“[It's] about dissolution and disintegration. It’s about when Saturday night happens and you lose all sense of yourself. And it’s about when you wake up Sunday morning and look back at the wreck you’ve made of your life and you think, ‘How can I possibly fix this? How can I ever climb out of this hole?’ And then you start to try and climb.”

The below two singles were quietly dropped on the band’s official site a few days ago, with the “side a” song, 1492, obviously slated for the Saturday half of the forthcoming album, and the “b side” song, “I Dream of Michaelangelo” being for the Sunday morning after.

As a side note, if you don’t currently subscribe to Adam’s blog, I encourage you to do so. The guy’s style of writing was made for blogs.

Listen to the tracks below, and see what you think. I’m still holding out for greatness, but, based on these, I’ll reserve my judgement for now. Drop a line in the comments as to your thoughts.

Listen: Counting Crows – 1492
Listen: Counting Crows – When I Dream of Michaelangelo

This has been a post from Burgo's Music Blog

Counting Crows – Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings

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