The 90s was a great time for bands to be coming out and coming up through the ranks. The Counting Crows came out in the early 90s and while some people had a hard time accepting them since a few of their songs were kind of odd, there were those of us that took a look at them and said to ourselves that this band was something different, and that was a good thing. They hit the scene doing their own thing just like everyone else and soon picked up speed as their fame started to build and people started taking note that they were the real thing and not just some flash in the pan. To date they’ve been around for close to three decades and they’re still performing, though not quite as much in their earlier days. Their newer stuff is pretty good and still has a good deal of feeling to it, but their earlier tracks are something to remember.
Here are some of their songs as they’ve been used in movies and TV.
5. Counting Crows – Mr. Jones
This one couldn’t be left out since it’s one of their best and earlier songs that managed to snag a lot of people’s attention and is just fun to listen to and even pick up and sing in a karaoke bar. Adam Duritz’s voice is easy enough to emulate but you wouldn’t believe how many people out there think they can sing when they’re sober, and how many more think that being drunk is the perfect way to sound even better. Hearing this song butchered on karaoke is kind of funny since it’s not a hard song to sing and could even sound better coming from someone with the right set of pipes. But alas, that’s not what karaoke is for, is it?
4. Scrubs – A Murder of One
I’ve written about this show in a few articles but it can’t be said enough that it was one of the funniest shows on TV during its time and it would be great to see just a single reunion episode if everyone could be brought back for that long. Just to see what story arcs would be brought up would be interesting since after all this time you can easily imagine that a few of the characters would have moved on and done something else with their lives or perhaps even opened their own practices. The show was something fun to watch when there was nothing else on and it was something fun when new episodes were coming in.
3. Cruel Intentions – Colorblind
This movie kind of makes you wonder if those people that never seem to worry about money would intentionally do something like this just because they’re bored and need something to occupy their time. The idea of making a bet that a guy would be able to make a woman lose her virginity to him or lose his car to his stepsister is the kind of thing that should turn your stomach, but in a movie it’s the way to set up a perfect revenge plot that leads to the eventual downfall of the vindictive young woman that put it all into motion. The look on her face when her every secret is laid bare at the end is just priceless.
2. Shrek 2 – Accidentally In Love
A lot of people probably thought that the first movie tied this story up neatly with a bow, but of course there was a lot more to it. Shrek had to meet Fiona’s royal parents, and that didn’t go so well. Then he started to question his role in Fiona’s life, the fairy godmother stepped in and tried to arrange things so that her son, Prince Charming, could marry Fiona, and then Shrek had to make peace with the fact that she might have been better off, at least until he found out the scheme. Then it became a race to let Fiona know just how he felt about her, again, and to finally accept himself, and her, for who they really were.
1. Saturday Night Live – Round Here
Depending on where you saw this song acted out first you might have accepted it easier or had a harder time listening. On MTV it was featured in a music video and had studio-quality sound, but in a live performances things do sound a bit different. Still, at this point their fame was still something that already been assured since they were three years into their career at this point and people had already decided they liked them, a lot. After all as I’ve said before, people don’t typically get invited to SNL unless they’re already proven and had a reputation for being able to please the crowd.
The Counting Crows are just as good as they were when they started, but things have changed just a bit.
Follow Us