Before These Crowded Streets

Before These Crowded Streets
Studio album by Dave Matthews Band
Released	April 28, 1998
Recorded	The Plant Studios, Sausalito, CA & Electric Lady Studios, New York, NY
Genre	rock
Length	70:14
Label	RCA
Producer	Steve Lillywhite
Professional reviews
Allmusic link Entertainment Weekly (B-) link Rolling Stone link
Dave Matthews Band chronology
Crash (1996) Before These Crowded Streets (1998) Everyday (2001)
Singles from Before These Crowded Streets
"Don't Drink the Water" Released: 1998 "Stay (Wasting Time)" Released: 1998 "Crush" Released: 1998 "Rapunzel" Released: 1998

Before These Crowded Streets is the third studio album by Dave Matthews Band, released on April 28, 1998. It is the last official 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 of 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]}

Track listing

Special guest Tim Reynolds is featured on all tracks.

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)"

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]

—Boyd Tinsley, May 2006

Some fans familiar with the idea of "MacHead" believed it had been developed, renamed, and added to the band's catalog.^{[citation needed]} They speculate 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.

Personnel

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

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
  • David Harrington – violin
  • John Sherba – violin
  • Joan Jeanrenaud – cello
  • Hank Dutt – viola
• Alanis Morissette – vocals
• Tim Reynolds – mandolin, electric guitar
• Butch Taylor – organ, piano
• Jeff Coffin - saxophone

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

Charts

References