Counting Crows "August and Everything After" [1993]

I almost wish Counting Crows had come before Van Morrison and Bruce Springsteen -- that way, we'd never have had to hear from those guys because this band would have already choked on all their conceits. Nasal, plaintive, bleating vocals always mean the deliverer is insincere but taking direction from his album producer; the Counting Crows guy is definitely a house-trained mutt, but he's fooling himself if he thinks he's passing off being empathetic about the loser characters in "August and Everything After." And that's not exactly a hanging crime (though he might wish to consider a career in politics instead), but his conscious and deliberate vocal delivery on this album should be. Though if Van Morrison weren't so fat and feeble by 1993, I'd be just as satisfied watching him kicking that guy's ass. I'm sure between Van and Robbie Robertson, they could take care of the whole Counting Crows band themselves, even in their decrepit state. It would have been worth it to see their shallow dreams of being "big stars" come true, just to see them cruelly taken away. See, that's what these guys were really after; they thought faking "Eleanor Rigby" every so often would suffice in allowing them to be famous enough to receive fellatio from female TV stars. And while it did work for a time, Counting Crows eventually wound up as filler on a "Shrek" sequel soundtrack; I'll settle for that if I can't get Van the Man on pay-per-view pulling out this douchebag's dreads one by one.