August and Everything After: Upon the Crows releasing it, August and Everything After sounded remarkably fresh, a welcome change from the crunch and screech of grunge. Blending the vocal athleticism of Van Morrison with the moody rock of The Band, the Counting Crows turned on a whole legion of fans turned off by modern rock. August and Everything After is a fantastic rock album. Though "Mr. Jones" was the money-maker, the disc features such stand-out cuts as the dark lilt of "Anna Begins", the morose "Rain King", and the outstanding U2-meets-Grant Lee Buffalo anthem "Murder of One".

Across a Wire Too much too soon is the signture of so many bands who, thanks to the fleeting fame that accompanies music-video breakthroughs, are famous before their time and has-beens five minutes later. You could be excused for thinking that's the case with Counting Crows, darlings of both MTV and VH1, who here release a double concert album after only two studio albums. But you'd be wrong. The set, an acoustic disc recorded for VH1 and an electric one from MTV, proves how well the often-bootlegged Crows have earned their reputation as a smoking live band. It also shows how elastic their rambling and evocative songs can be, some of which appear on both discs but in vastly different arrangements. People may tire of vocalist Adam Duritz's perpetually-wounded-soldier-of-love act, but this is one band, Counting Crows, whose success was hard-won and is richly deserved.

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