Counting Crows: David Immergluck (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, slide guitar, electric sitar); Dave Vickrey (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, banjo, sitar); Charles Gillingham (vocals, acoustic guitar, accordion, piano, Wurlitzer electric piano, Fender Rhodes electric piano, Omnichord, Hammond B-3 organ, chamberlain, Mellotron, synthesizer); Matt Malley (vocals, guitar, electric bass, double bass); Adam Duritz (vocals, harmonica, piano, tambourine, loo bells, samples); Jim Bogios (vocals, drums, percussion, loops); Steve Bowman (vocals, drums).

Additional personnel: Sheryl Crow (background vocals).

Producers include: David Bryson, T-Bone Burnett, Gil Norton, David Lowry, Dennis Herring.

Counting Crows: Matt Malley (vocals, piano, bass guitar); Adam Duritz (vocals); David Bryson, David Immerglück, Dani Vickery (guitar); Charlie Gillingham (keyboards); Millard Powers (bass guitar); Jim Bogios, Ben Mize (drums).

Counting Crows always seemed a little older than their years, so it somehow seemed appropriate when they arrived at certain milestones a little earlier than their peers. They released their first live album, an exhaustive double-disc set, just two albums into their career, then, two albums later, they issued Films About Ghosts: The Best of..., their first compilation. Part of the reason they're issuing a compilation after just four studio albums may be that they've arrived at the end of the recording contract with Geffen and this ties up loose ends, but it's also been ten years since the band broke through with their debut August and Everything After and their first hit, "Mr. Jones," so it's a good time to take stock and recap their first decade. Films About Ghosts does offer an accurate summary of those ten years, even if it's not a complete one. While this generous 16-track compilation includes all of the major hits -- "Round Here," "A Long December," "Hanginaround," "Mr. Jones," and even the non-LP modern rock chart-topper "Einstein on the Beach (For an Eggman)" -- it does overlook three charting singles from their first two albums("A Murder of One," "Daylight Fading," "Have You Seen Me Lately"), substituting album tracks, and two new recordings produced by Brendan O'Brien (the good new single "She Don't Want Nobody Near," an enjoyable but superfluous cover of the Grateful Dead's "Friend of the Devil") instead. Add to this a deliberately non-chronological sequencing that prevents the album from giving proper momentum, and Films About Ghosts isn't as ideal a compilation as it could have been, but these are rather minor issues, since it does contain the great majority of the Counting Crows' hits and concert staples and, in doing so, it provides a listen that's as enjoyable, frustrating, and rewarding as the band's proper albums. And that means it's a fine summary of the group's stint at Geffen, an era that might have resulted in just four albums in ten years, but did provide a bunch of good music, much of which can be heard here. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

When Counting Crows emerged in the early 1990s with a folk-rock sound that seemed to hearken back to Van Morrison and Bob Dylan, they represented for many a welcome alternative to the dour, sludgy grunge nation that ruled the rock roost. With Adam Duritz's poetic sad-sack lyrics, Charlie Gillingham's Garth Hudson-like keyboard work, and a bedrock of jangling guitars, the Crows turned out a passel of fine albums in their first decade, each of which is well represented on this collection.

The hits are obviously here; the self-referential breakout smash "Mr. Jones," the out-of-left-field soundtrack contribution "Big Yellow Taxi" (which found the band riding Joni's chestnut all the way to the singles charts), and the pulsating, Sheryl Crow-assisted "American Girls." With a band as substantive as this, however, it's the lesser-known album tracks that are the real meat in the meal, and there are plenty here, as well as a couple of previously unreleased tracks. The new songs, a live version of the Grateful Dead ballad "Friend of the Devil" and a typically catchy original composition "She Don't Want Nobody Near," suggest that the story of Counting Crows is far from over.