Hard Candy (Counting Crows album)


Hard Candy is the fourth studio album by American rock band Counting Crows, released in the United Kingdom on July 7, 2002, and the following day in the United States.
The album features the hidden track "Big Yellow Taxi", a Joni Mitchell cover. This was one of their biggest radio hits from the album; re-releases were revised to mention the song. Originally the song did not include Vanessa Carlton and the standard version caught the ear of a producer who added it to the movie Two Weeks Notice adding Carlton's voice to the track. This version topped the VH-1 charts and American Top 40 for a while. A new version of the song "Holiday in Spain", recorded as a duet in English and Dutch with Dutch band BLØF, became a number-one hit in the Netherlands.
WWW countingcrows.com/music/h...

Reception

Reviews hailed the album as the best release from Counting Crows since their debut album August and Everything After, with the albums of the mid-1990s being "long, and drawn out", likely due to lead singer Adam Duritz's state of mind at that time, one reviewer happily announced that, "Hard Candy is crisp and tight, packed with three- and four-minute shots of radio friendly fare", and that during a time when hard rock is the standard, the band are not afraid of a sound that is in the title track, compared to the Byrds, and with its "Allman-esque" twin guitars, echoes The Band in "If I Could Give All My Love (Richard Manuel Is Dead)". The album has received a score of 69 out of 100 based on "generally favorable reviews" from Metacritic.
However, the cover of Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" was met with searing criticism, with The Village Voice naming it the worst song of the 2000s: Additionally, NME also included this cover on its list of the worst songs of the 2000s, and Ultimate Classic Rock highlighted this song in its Terrible Classic Rock Covers series.

Track listing

All tracks written by Adam F. Duritz unless otherwise indicated. The song "Big Yellow Taxi" was written by Joni Mitchell, who is credited in the liner notes with the passage "May contain trace amounts of Joni Mitchell"
  1. "Hard Candy" – 4:20
  2. "American Girls" – 4:32
  3. "Good Time" – 4:24
  4. "If I Could Give All My Love (Richard Manuel Is Dead)" – 3:52
  5. "Goodnight L.A." – 4:17
  6. "Butterfly in Reverse" – 2:48
  7. "Miami" – 5:01
  8. "New Frontier" – 3:51
  9. "Carriage" – 4:04
  10. "Black and Blue" – 3:53
  11. "Why Should You Come When I Call?" – 4:38
  12. "Up All Night " – 5:07
  13. "Holiday in Spain" – 3:50
  14. "Big Yellow Taxi" – 3:57
;2006 revised edition
  2. "4 White Stallions" – 4:21
  3. "Big Yellow Taxi" – 3:47
;United Kingdom release
  2. "4 White Stallions" – 4:21
  3. "You Ain't Going Nowhere" – 8:43
  4. "Big Yellow Taxi" – 3:57
;United Kingdom 2003 re-release
  2. "4 White Stallions" – 4:21
  3. "You Ain't Going Nowhere" – 3:44
  4. "Big Yellow Taxi" – 3:47
;Japanese release
  2. "4 White Stallions" – 4:21
  3. "You Ain't Going Nowhere" – 3:44
  4. "Start Again" – 3:34
  5. "Big Yellow Taxi" – 3:57
;Japanese 2003 re-release
  2. "4 White Stallions" – 4:21
  3. "You Ain't Going Nowhere" – 3:44
  4. "Start Again" – 3:34
  5. "Big Yellow Taxi" – 3:47

Personnel

;Counting Crows
;Additional musicians

Charts

Year-end charts

Chart Position
Dutch Albums 95