20 Exquisitely-Produced Songs That MUST Be Played Loud As Hell

8. Counting Crows €“ "Catapult"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5EX7FSBUzA Virtually all Counting Crows fans €“ myself included €“ would point to 1993's "August and Everything After" as the band's best album. However, while "August" was itself a very well produced album €“ the record gave Americana mastermind T. Bone Burnett his start €“ it's not the band's "play as loud as you possibly can" album. Instead, that particular title belongs to "Recovering the Satellites," Counting Crows' 1996 sophomore album, which saw the band rebelling against fame and turning the amplifiers up to 11 for the loudest and most raucous songs of their career. The shift was rarely more evident than on opening track "Catapult," which begins with a hushed Wurlitzer line only to explode into a blazing guitar anthem moments later. Some credit for the success of "Catapult" goes to producer Gil Norton, who the band would bring back a decade and a half later when they tried to go loud once more (on 2008's lukewarm "Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings"). However, the most valuable player for the song €“ and for the album as a whole €“ is Dan Vickrey, the lead guitarist who joined Counting Crows in 1994 and who made his first recorded appearance with the band here. The peak of "Catapult" is Vickrey's snarling, acrobatic guitar solo, which, when coupled with frontman Adam Duritz' unhinged vocal performance, packs a punch that most people never expected from the jangly "Mr. Jones" folk rockers.