It's the start of Dave Matthews Band Week here on the 9th Green in celebration of tomorrow's release of the new album, Stand Up. I've already taken a listen to it thanks to VH1 and my preliminary assessment is a good one. The full review will cap off the end of DMB Week. In today's installment, I'll be counting down the all of the studio albums, so no live albums (that will be coming later in the week). Also no Remember Two Things, Recently, or Lillywhite Sessions as most of those songs show up on the major label releases.
5. Which one of these is not like the others? Three minute pop songs, little violin and saxes, Glen Ballard; all this adds up to not your typical DMB album. It's safe to say that this album scrapes the bottom of every DMB fan's list. It almost plays like like a Dave Matthews solo album, except Dave's real solo album is better than this. But there are some good songs here, When the World Ends grew on me after it originally pissed me off that it ended abruptly. I at first thought my CD was defective. It wasn't until I heard the song live that I realized "When the world ends, and the world ended before the song ends." Everyday also spawned the best DMB video for the title track with the creepy fat dude (currently seen in Project Greenlight - reminder, the season finale is this Thursday) who went around hugging everyone.
4. The first half of Crash is as good as the best of them, but I feel the second falls flat. Crash, of course has the big song, Crash Into Me. A song that every girl of my generation is obsessed with and wants it to be Their Song at her wedding yet doesn't realize the song was written through the eyes of a stacker. "Oh I watch you there through the window and I stare at you. You wear nothing, but you wear it so well." The album closer, Proudest Monkey, ranks as my least favorite DMB song of all time. On the other side, #41 transitioning into Say Goodbye is one of my all time favorite DMB moments which I'll go into greater detail during my greatest songs countdown later this week.
3. The reason why the Lillywhite Sessions was excluded from this list is because, for all intents and purposes, they are essentially the same album. And since most songs were salvaged from the pre-Everyday Littlywhite Sessions (check back later this week for a DMB history for an explanation), Busted Stuff makes a good title. One of the few truly new songs from the album, You Never Know has one of my favorite lines from a DMB song, "Everyday should be a good day to die." The two best songs on the album, Grace is Gone, the saddest song Dave ever wrote, and Bartender do actually sound better on the Lillywhite Session, but a good listen on either album nonetheless.
2. Surprising that my deep hatred for Alanis Morissette, who appears on two songs, didn't put Before These Crowded Streets at a disadvantage on this list. The album seems darker than the previous one with moody songs as apparent by the first single, Don't Drink the Water, which had a video that featured the head of Dave missing its body. The album didn't get much cheerier from there with The Last Stop, The Stone, and the darkest of them all, Halloween (which was dusted off from the earlier Recently album). One of the few upbeat songs is Stay (Wasting Time), which is highlighted with a group of background singers, the song just doesn't sound as good live with out them. Also to add to the ambiance of the album is a few short instrumental songs that take place in between songs. That is something I wish the band would bring back.
1. The album that started it all, at least for us who live outside of the southern east coast. It took me a while to be sold on DMB and once I got this CD as a gift, it was hard to bet out of my CD player, and still gets heavy rotation even today. Definitely more upbeat than Before These Crowded Streets, Under the Table and Dreaming has a positive feel to it as heard in the opener The Best of What's Around, as well as the singles Satellite and Ants Marching. There is not a song that I even have the notion to skip over on hear. When I countdown my Top 10 songs, UTTAD will have the most entries in it. The songs themselves are getting better with age too as songs like Warehouse and Jimi Thing take on new lives at concerts these days. The album caps off with #34, also the 34th track so make sure you stick around, an instrumental that is so light, it almost serves as a lullaby, a great ending to their best album.Be sure to stop back tomorrow for day two of Dave Matthews Band Week. Also tomorrow is the release date for Stand Up, so make sure you pick it up and if you can't wait, stop over at VH1 to stream the album in it entirety. Also feel free to leave a comment listing how you would rank the albums.
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