I’d rather be in *Cape Town* scuba diving — Wander Weeks
“Sustained high inflation is not a threat in this environment.” Sing it, Adam Posen!
“Sustained high inflation is not a threat in this environment.” Sing it, Adam Posen!
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from Ryan Jones - Google+ Post Feed http://bit.ly/sYGQxZ
OK, now it's TOMATO PASTE that's a vegetable.
OK, now it’s TOMATO PASTE that’s a vegetable.
from Ryan Jones - Google+ Post Feed http://bit.ly/tU9rqf
vladimir putin is, by far, the funniest world leader.
vladimir putin is, by far, the funniest world leader.
from Ryan Jones - Google+ Post Feed http://bit.ly/ttRaEp
gutsy!
gutsy!
from Ryan Jones - Google+ Post Feed http://bit.ly/snRJFh
Time to go conquer the world!
Time to go conquer the world!
from Ryan Jones - Google+ Post Feed http://bit.ly/vGsFU7
The guy in front of me on this flight was watching a DVD of 'early edition.' Technology is amazing!!
The guy in front of me on this flight was watching a DVD of ‘early edition.’ Technology is amazing!!
from Ryan Jones - Google+ Post Feed http://bit.ly/sGYFVJ
this is sensational, even though the picture is a bit ridiculous.
this is sensational, even though the picture is a bit ridiculous.
from Ryan Jones - Google+ Post Feed http://bit.ly/vtlZ7v
"
In 2009, 237,000 taxpayers reported income above $1 million and they paid $178 billion in taxes. A mere 8,274 filers reported income above $10 million, and they paid only $54 billion in taxes.
But 3.92 million reported income above $200,000 in 2009, and they paid $434 billion in taxes. To put it another way, roughly 90% of the tax filers who would pay more under Mr. Obama’s plan aren’t millionaires, and 99.99% aren’t billionaires.
"This makes NO sense. A millionaire is someone with a million dollars in assets, not someone who makes a million dollars per year. Does the WSJ editorial page think a billionaire is someone who makes a billion dollars per year?
Toward a Unified Theory of the Counting Crows (1993-98, obv)
After a conversation with +Ruben Brosbe and +Ben Kowitt about whether ‘Live on a Wire,’ Disc 2, could be considered the Counting Crows’ best, or even second-best, CD (no), we quickly turned to the inevitable question: August and Everything After or Recovering the Satellites?
After confidently and, admittedly now, hastily, responding that ‘Recovering’ was clearly better, I finally got around today to listening to both albums straight through in an attempt to defend my assertion. What I realized is that there is much more to the debate then I considered at the time, and there’s a lot more here than I could hope to unpack on my own, which is why I’m turning to you.
Song-by-Song
First off, ‘Recovering’ is a significantly longer album, by three songs and 12 minutes, than ‘August.’ This means that the best songs on the album are diluted by extra tracks, and means that, on a tracks-per-hit basis, ‘August’ is a tighter record.
Now, though, let’s take a look at the quality of the also-rans. Take the four ‘best’ from each album off the table (based on commercial popularity as best I can remember, not personal preference). Here are the tracks you are left with:
August and Everything After
Omaha
Perfect Blue Buildings
Time and Time Again
Anna Begins
Sullivan Street
Ghost Train
Raining in Baltimore
Recovering the Satellites
Catapult
I’m Not Sleeping
Children in Bloom
Have you Seen Me Lately?
Miller’s Angels
Another Horsedreamer’s Blues
Recovering the Satellites
Monkey
Mercury
Walkaways
I think Duritz might have erred by keeping all of these songs on ‘Recovering’ (It comes in so close to an hour exactly that it seems like it might have been pressure from the label, but who knows). I think if you go head-to-head on these songs, though, allowing you to conveniently eliminate the three worst songs on ‘Recovering’ (probably walkaways, monkey, and mercury, which are all at the end of the album, which definitely, as we will see, props them up), it’s a tight battle. ‘Anna Begins’ is a winner, but ‘Catapult’, ‘Horsedreamers’, the title track, ‘Have You Seen Me Lately’, and ‘I’m Not Sleeping’ will all give the rest of the songs on ‘August’ a run for their money. ‘Omaha’ and ‘Sullivan Street’ are fine, if both a little campy (Melloncampy in the case of ‘Omaha’), but the rest of the songs on that album are a bit forgettable. ‘Raining in Baltimore’ is swept over by some of the Counting Crow’s later slow, emotional songs, so despite its merits I don’t think it gets through here. Might be worth actually trying to set up a fair head-to-head to see what we think.
So that’s the bottom of the order. What about the heavy hitters? Personally, though it might be controversial, I believe the best Counting Crows song is on ‘Recovering the Satellites,’ and that song is ‘A Long December.’ Maybe it’s just because ‘3,000 Miles to Graceland’ was on yesterday, and I got to see Courtney Cox at her best, but I think it’s a masterpiece, perfectly placed at the end of the Crow’s most introspective album. My personal rankings for these songs:
1. A Long December - RECOVERING
2. Mr. Jones - AUGUST
3. Angels of the Silences - RECOVERING
4. Round Here - AUGUST (might be number 1 if not for the weird funky bass solo in the middle of the song)
5. Rain King - AUGUST
6. Daylight Fading - RECOVERING
7. Goodnight Elisabeth - RECOVERING
8. A Murder of One - AUGUST
So it’s pretty even. the ‘best song’ designation carries a lot of weight with me, but ‘August’ really has some good songs on it.
Album qua Album
Songwise, I think the albums are roughly equal on the upside, but the extra length of ‘Recovering’ is a liability, so the edge here, in my mind, goes to ‘August.’ What about the full album experience, though, since that’s what we’re really talking about? Here, i think that ‘Recovering the Satellites’ is clearly superior.
While ‘August and Everything After’, like most freshman albums, is a collection of very good songs, call it a polished demo tape (which i don’t mean as an insult), ‘Recovering’, because of both the maturity of the band and the depth of their shared experience over the years during its creation, reflects a much more coherent and well-articulated vision, rewarding a through-listener, and a repeat listener, far more than does ‘August’. Sure, the songs on ‘August’ are all linked by a sort of desperate, pre-apocalyptic joy, but the album as a whole contains little of the thematic unity and narrative progression of its older brother. While ‘Recovering’ might get a little heavy-handed at times with the hypersensory imagery—never before has there been more seeing, sleeping, fading, and silence in one place—it’s still an incredibly valuable portrait of one artist’s attempt to come to terms with the complex trappings of fame and success.
The entire journey wouldn’t be nearly as effective as it is without the haunting and redemptive ‘December,’ a song that doesn’t hit you in the face with the loud thematic language of the rest of the album, but instead gives us a series of snapshots of the unusual nature of young fame. where ‘daylight fading’ is a manic, cynical attempt to escape pain, ‘a long december’ is the sober come-down, the acceptance, no doubt just as the sun begins to rise over the hollywood hills, of the inevitability of that pain. ‘maybe next year will be better than the last.’ maybe it won’t (and in the case of the Counting Crows post-‘Recovering,’ things just got awfully crappy), but that’s life. Finally, is there a better quatrain in mid-90’s american pop than
the smell of hospitals in winter
and the feeling that it’s all a lot of oysters, but no pearls
All at once you look across a crowded room
to see the way that light attaches to a girl
?
