SATURDAY NIGHTS & SUNDAY MORNINGS
| Counting Crows
SATURDAY NIGHTS & SUNDAY MORNINGS
Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings is the fifth studio album by Counting Crows, released in the United States on March 25, 2008. - WIKIPEDIA
Critic Reviews
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CoS
Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings leaves you longing for the weekend to end and the Crows to return to the studio for a better effort.
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popMATTERS
The Counting Crows raise a ruckus and then feel kinda bad about it, but lose sight of the more rewarding middle ground.
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SLANT
What’s different this time is the split between the album’s two supposedly dissonant halves, from the harder-edged Saturday Nights (think keg stands and lots of mistakes) to the reflections of Sunday Mornings (think tears and homecomings). But the Crows are a one-speed band—that speed being neutral—so it’s quickly clear this conceit is just an excuse for Duritz to wax nostalgic about old flames.
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BBC
In the end it's a concept that has obviously fired the band's creative spark again. We may not all relate to the self-destructive urge that pushes Duritz's muse to the edge, but as a straight-ahead rock album it's still got a lot to offer.
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sputnik music
A whirlwind of emotion and haunting lyrics make the Crows' first studio album since 2002 a staple piece of their discography. Perhaps even outdoing the ever-so popular "August and Everything After".
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ALL MUSIC
Ultimately, Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings doesn't despair, but comes dangerously close. The kids may not understand, but they don't have to. Brilliant.
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musicOMH
Considered as a whole, or even as two self-serving parts, Saturday Nights And Sunday Mornings is so generic and unenlightening that you will probably not remember hearing it within an hour or so.
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INDEPENDENT
The first half isn't too bad, with "1492" opening the album with the urgent drive of Document-era REM, Adam Duritz spinning a frantic narrative of Columbian discovery that typically leads to "The silence that surrounds us and which drowns us in the end". But it transpires that "1492" is a leftover song from 2002's Hard Candy, and as the band reinvent first Nirvana's "Teen Spirit" wheel with "Hanging Tree", and then The Black Crowes' frazzled blues-rock wheel with "Los Angeles", it looks increasingly as if they've run out of ideas. But it's the second half that really sinks one's spirits, as Duritz's self-absorption is exposed by flimsier, largely acoustic arrangements. "On a Tuesday in Amsterdam Long Ago" is most unbearably representative of the album, a ghastly wallow in self-pity that not even Adam's mum should be forced to hear.
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The Guardian
Sodden trad-rock rarely gets less inviting.
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NO DEPRESSION
But one could also argue that the band’s five studio albums are all pretty good, including the new Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings, a concept album (how old-fashioned!) about hedonistic indulgence and the reflections that come on the morning after. Rockers such as “1492” and “Cowboys” gallop on a well-orchestrated whirlwind of guitars; the Crows are also big on keyboards, and believe that snappy arrangements go a long way towards selling a song. Because Duritz’s vocal phrasing is built into his melodies, his words fairly embrace the hooks of tunes such as “Hanging Tree” and “Anyone But You”.
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andrew reilly
They may have set the bar too high by having a masterpiece of a debut album, but Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings proves that even 15 years on, they’re still certainly doing something right.
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Entertainment
Attendees at the Counting Crows’ next show may drop their wine coolers in shock when the often sleepy group plays ”1492,” a historical romp that sounds like a furious Pearl Jam track. Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings‘ first half, produced by Pixies vet Gil Norton, is surprisingly fast and scrappy. But the pace slackens in the mellower remainder, produced by Brian Deck (Iron & Wine). There, as heard on no-chick-can-tie-me-down boasts like ”You Can’t Count on Me,” you’re reminded of one thing that hasn’t changed: Adam Duritz’s pseudo-sensitive narcissism.
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RTE'
The rush to complete tracks to fulfil Duritz's concept for the album is all too evident, and ultimately 'Saturday Night & Sunday Mornings' sees a band beginning to run out of ideas and unable to box above their limitations.
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30 DAYS OUT
Duritz says the band named the album Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings because Saturday is when you sin and Sunday is when you regret. Counting Crows only sinned a couple of times on this disc, so I don’t think you’ll have any regrets if you decide to go out and buy it.
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paste
Granted, on a scale of Celine Dion Live à Paris to OK Computer, this is a fine record. But it’s only fair to consider Saturday Nights, Sunday Mornings in the context of the rest of the Crows’ catalog, and with that in mind—to borrow a phrase from Duritz—this one might fade into the grey.
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ULTIMATE GUITAR.COM
this album will not let down the large fan base they've cultivated throughout the years.
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Mirror
A great rock band rise to a new plateau.
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the INEPT owl
“Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings” works as a title. The beginning of the album would be appropriate for any weekend night at the bar, doing shots of Jagermeister and shouting lame pickup lines into some girl’s ear. But the later, longer portion of the album is much more morning-after, hung-over, where-are-my-pants-and-who-is-that-person-on-my-bed sort of music.
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The California Aggie
The first half stands strongest, and I’m inclined to believe that more Norton-produced tracks would do the album more justice. Then again, there’s nothing wrong with a Sunday morning ballad, and the Counting Crows at least know how to do it right.
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ONEfine(mess) Archive
All in all, I’d say it’s a worthwhile experiment that would not function at it’s peak without the previous material so, probably won’t be as well appreciated by non-fans.
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BULLZ-EYE.COM
The good news is that the hardcore followers should all find something to like on Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings, because there are certainly enough good tracks to go around.
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The LANTERN
Counting Crows listeners will have to adjust to the new sound, which might take some time, but there are definitely songs on the album worth listening to.
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The Harvard Crimson
The more interesting part of the album is the “Sunday Mornings” portion, when the instrumentation doesn’t compete with the lyrics for attention. Deck’s influence as producer is evident in the delicate piano melodies and wailing harmonicas that provide a needed contrast to the loudness of the first half. The softer sound better showcases the deeply personal nature of Duritz’s lyrics. “Washington Square” in particular is an affecting song about longing for the people and places you know—and that know you in return.
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channel 24
Counting Crows’ newest collection isn’t that contrived. But it is a brilliant form of apartheid: you’ve got your rockers in one camp (Saturday Nights) and your separately produced ballads and moodier compositions in the other (Sunday Mornings).
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