Before These Crowded Streets
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| Before These Crowded Streets | |||||
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| Studio album by Dave Matthews Band | |||||
| Released | April 28, 1998 | ||||
| Recorded | The Plant Studios, Sausalito, CA & Electric Lady Studios, New York, NY | ||||
| Genre | Jazz fusion, rock | ||||
| Length | 70:14 | ||||
| Label | RCA | ||||
| Producer | Steve Lillywhite | ||||
| Professional reviews | |||||
| Dave Matthews Band chronology | |||||
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| Singles from Before These Crowded Streets | |||||
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Before These Crowded Streets (known by the initialism BTCS) is the third studio album by Dave Matthews Band, released on April 28, 1998. It is the last album by the group to be produced by longtime producer Steve Lillywhite and their first album recorded at Record Plant Studios in Sausalito, California[1]. The album title is taken from the lyrics to the song "The Dreaming Tree."[2] It is one of only two Dave Matthews Band albums released on vinyl; the other being Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King. It debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 charts after selling 421,000 units in its first week of release, which in turn knocked off the Titanic soundtrack from the top spot after a run of 16 consecutive weeks at #1.[citation needed]
Contents |
[edit] Track listing
Special guest Tim Reynolds is featured on all tracks.
| # | Title | Writer(s) | Guest musician(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Pantala Naga Pampa" | Dave Matthews | 0:40 | |
| 2. | "Rapunzel" | Matthews, Stefan Lessard, Carter Beauford | Butch Taylor | 6:00 |
| 3. | "The Last Stop" | Matthews, Lessard | Béla Fleck, Moses | 6:57 |
| 4. | "Don't Drink the Water" | Matthews | Alanis Morissette, Fleck | 7:01 |
| 5. | "Stay (Wasting Time)" | Matthews, Lessard, LeRoi Moore | Tawatha Agee, Cindy Myzell, Brenda White King | 5:35 |
| 6. | "Halloween" | Matthews | Morissette, John D'earth, Kronos Quartet | 5:07 |
| 7. | "The Stone" | Matthews | D'earth, Kronos Quartet | 7:28 |
| 8. | "Crush" | Matthews | Taylor | 8:09 |
| 9. | "The Dreaming Tree" | Matthews, Lessard | Greg Howard | 8:48 |
| 10. | "Pig" | Matthews, Lessard, Beauford, Moore, Boyd Tinsley | 6:57 | |
| 11. | "Spoon" | Matthews | Morissette, Fleck | 7:33 |
[edit] Songs cut from the album
Songs that were recorded during the sessions, but were not included on the final cut:[citation needed]
- "Help Myself" - Licensed for the Scream 2 soundtrack in lieu of "Halloween", which the band decided was too good to leave off the album. Long believed to have been recorded during the Crash sessions.[by whom?]
- "Don't Burn the Pig" – Evolved into "Pig" during the sessions.
- "Get in Line"
- "MacHead"
- "#40 (Always)"
[edit] MacHead
"MacHead" was a song recorded during the album's sessions, but it was never completed, so it didn't make the album. Producer Steve Lillywhite named the song, claiming it sounded like a cross between the sound of Paul McCartney and Radiohead.[citation needed] The song's existence is only known from an image of a piece of paper circulated on the internet with a list of the working titles of the other songs on this album.
"[MacHead] is a song that we were working on for [Before] These Crowded Streets and it's a song that we just never got to completion before we finished the album. Who knows, maybe one of these days we'll finish it and record it again, but we finished the album before we finished the song."[3]
Many fans familiar with the idea of Machead believed it had been developed, renamed, and added to the band's catalog.[citation needed] The most common speculation was that Machead developed into Bartender which debuted in January 1999 at a Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds concert, just months after the April '98 release of Before These Crowded Streets.[by whom?]
[edit] Personnel
[edit] Musicians
- Dave Matthews – acoustic guitar, vocals
- Carter Beauford– percussion, drums, background vocals
- Stefan Lessard – bass
- LeRoi Moore – bass clarinet, alto saxophone, baritone saxophone, soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone, penny whistle
- Boyd Tinsley – violin
[edit] Additional personnel
- "The Lovely Ladies" – background vocals
- Tawatha Agee
- Cindy Myzell
- Brenda White-King
- John D'earth – trumpet
- Béla Fleck – banjo
- Greg Howard – Chapman Stick
- Kronos Quartet – strings
- Alanis Morissette – vocals
- Tim Reynolds – mandolin, electric guitar
- Butch Taylor – organ, piano
- Jeff Coffin - saxophone
[edit] Production
- Producer – Steve Lillywhite
- Engineer – Stephen Harris
- Assistant Engineer – Joel Courtright [sic][4], John Seymour
- Mastering – Ted Jensen
- Mixing – Steve Lillywhite
- Pre-Production – John Alagía
- Orchestral Arrangements – John D'earth
- Art Direction – Thane Kerner
- Design – Thane Kerner
- Photography – Ellen Von Unwerth
[edit] Charts
| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1998 | The Billboard 200 | 1 |
| 1998 | Top Canadian Albums | 6 |
| 1999 | Top Internet Albums | 17 |
[edit] References
- ^ Jacobson, Jeff. Dave Matthews Band: Busted Stuff Guitar and Vocal, 2002, page 2, Cherry Lane Music Company.
- ^ "The Dreaming Tree" opens with these lyrics: "Standing here / The old man said to me /"Long before these crowded streets / Here stood my dreaming tree" / Below it he would sit / For hours at a time"
- ^ Maliszeski, Joe (2006-05-02). "Boyd takes ESPN By Storm (Wimbledon Music) (Machead)". Antsmarching.org. http://antsmarching.org/story.php?NewsID=494. Retrieved on 2007-05-06.
- ^ Correct spelling: "Cortright"
| Preceded by Titanic (soundtrack) by Various artists |
Billboard 200 number-one album May 16 - May 22, 1998 |
Succeeded by The Limited Series by Garth Brooks |
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