The Alternative Number Ones: Counting Crows’ “Einstein On The Beach (For An Eggman)”

In The Alternative Number Ones, I'm reviewing every #1 single in the history of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks/Alternative Songs, starting with the moment that the chart launched in 1988. This column is a companion piece to The Number Ones, and it's for members only. Thank you to everyone who's helping to keep Stereogum afloat.

"Bland Guys Finish First." That was what they put on the cover of the magazine. In 1994, SPIN sent Jim Greer, the most gonzo writer in the magazine's stable, to Charlottesville, Virginia to interview Counting Crows. Jim Greer did not particularly like the Counting Crows. Neither did anybody else at SPIN. But Counting Crows were an alternative rock phenomenon, a hugely popular rookie band that came out of nowhere and sold millions of records. Theoretically, they fit under the SPIN purview the same way that they belonged in the playlists of alternative rock stations. But from a music critic's perspective, they were soggy, leaden MOR mediocrities. That critical disdain, more than anything about Counting Crows themselves, became the subject of that profile.

Adam Duritz knew what he was getting himself into. Duritz, Counting Crows' singer and public face, seems to be a perfectly lovely human being by all indications. I've read interviews and heard him on podcasts, and he comes off as a great hang with a decent perspective on his own place in the world. He had that perspective back then, too. In the SPIN profile, Duritz says, "I was kind of hesitant about doing this interview because I didn’t think anyone at SPIN liked us. I don’t really care about that particularly, but I didn’t want to participate in my own execution." He still went through with it, and an execution is what he got.