Pop Rock Whores: Counting Crows and The Long Winters

July 23, 10:54 AMMusic ExaminerBen Westhoff

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Where's Adam Duritz when you need him?

When some people think of Seattle band The Long Winters, they think of Counting Crows. This is unfortunate. When some people think of Adam Duritz from the Counting Crows, they think of Sideshow Bob. This is understandable. When I think of Duritz and his propensity to date Hollywood actresses, however, I think of the web site Hot Chicks With Douchebags. (Now a book!)

But back to The Long Winters. They're my favorite band, and they're supposedly crafting a new album. What they have in common with Counting Crows is that they're both unpretentious populists who really want to make you happy via easy riffs, sing-a-long choruses and universal subject matter. Pop rock whores, if you will.

The only trouble is that The Long Winters are awesome at it, and Counting Crows suck at it. As I write in my essay comparing the two bands in the new issue of Crawdaddy!:

"there are high-class whores and there are 10-dollars-a-throw whores. If you’ll excuse the completely outdated The Catcher in the Rye reference, tell me: Which would you prefer to spend time with?"

Moving on...

"On the Crows’ new song 'Cowboys,' for example, Duritz sings, 'This is a list of what I should have been but I'm not / This is a list of the things that I should have seen but I'm not seeing / The look in your eyes as his fingertips slid down your neck and made you shiver / I'm just turning away from where I should have been because I am not anything.'

"Clearly a pandering attempt to appeal to the listener’s self-doubt, the song derails about halfway through, and by the end I, for one, have no idea what the hell he’s talking about. Maybe that’s just because I don’t have a cuckolding fetish—as he seems to be watching his girl get with another guy—but more likely it’s because what he’s saying just isn’t believable. You’re not anything? A couple songs ago you were bragging about all the actresses you’ve banged. I mean, Christina Applegate may look a little weird since she had her face lifted, but she’s not nothing."