Modern Rock No. 1s: Counting Crows and "Einstein on the Beach (For an Eggman)"
Counting Crows hit #1 on the Modern Rock charts for the first and only time with "Einstein on the Beach (For an Eggman)," a song that deserves more love but feels lost to time
Counting Crows - “Einstein on the Beach (For an Eggman)”
Weeks atop the Billboard Modern Rock chart: 1 week (August 13, 1994)
Previous Modern Rock #1 hit: Offspring and “Come Out And Play”
Next Modern Rock #1 hit: Green Day and “Basket Case”
Billboard Hot 100 chart toppers during this time:
Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories - “Stay (I Missed You)” (2 total weeks, 8/6/94 and 8/13/94)
It feels like “Einstein on the Beach (For an Eggman)” is a forgotten part of the early legacy of Counting Crows. In 1993 and 1994, the band was exploding into the mainstream, part of that first wave of post-grunge alternative rock that found crossover success on the pop charts. Indeed, with songs like “Mr. Jones,” Counting Crows were a force to be reckoned with musically, their songs omnipresent on the radio and their star rising in the music world.
In the midst of promoting their breakout debut album August and Everything After, Counting Crows’ record company reached out to include one of the band’s shelved singles into a new compilation of rarities, DGC Rarities Vol. 1. The band agreed, and they passed along a song that they deemed a mismatch with the more angsty, introspective songs that made the cut for August and Everything After.
Lead singer Adam Duritz and the band chose “Einstein on the Beach (For an Eggman)” and it landed on an album full of bands who were pushing themselves into the zeitgeist at the same time. That said, most of the tracks that made the final cut of the album ultimately never amounted to much commercially. I imagine there are folks reading this who will argue that Sonic Youth’s “Compilation Blues” or Nirvana’s “Pay To Play” are among those respective bands’ finest songs, but commercially, the album failed to make much of a splash, peaking at a modest but underwhelming #139 on the Billboard 200 Album chart in 1994.
But Counting Crows’ record label, Geffen Records, though “Einstein on the Beach” had a certain … something. They pushed it to radio and, lo and behold, the track ended up becoming the band’s first and only #1 hit on the Modern Rock Tracks chart.
I tell the story of the song’s rise to the top because it’s a fascinating review of what it meant to be popular at the time, and I find the chain of events that followed this song’s ascendance to #1 very interesting. I don’t have a citation for this story other than the website Songfacts, so take it with a grain of salt, but Duritz purposely asked to scale back the band’s releases of songs and videos following the success of “Einstein on the Beach” because he didn’t want listeners to hear too many of their songs at once:
When this song (“Einstein on the Beach”) caught on, it caused Adam Duritz considerable consternation, as he was trying to avoid a Hootie & the Blowfish situation where their songs got played so much that listeners turned on them. To guard against overexposure, Duritz refused to make a video for “Rain King” and cut back on promotion for the album once they saturated the airwaves.
By this time, “Mr. Jones” and “Round Here” were already in heavy rotation on both alternative and pop radio, and by the end of summer 1994, “Einstein on the Beach” effectively gave the band three radio hits in short succession. It’s interesting because, at this time, I’m pretty sure the only Hootie & the Blowfish single in regular rotation on the radio was “Hold My Hand,” which was released commercially in July 1994. The band’s second single, “Let Her Cry,” wouldn’t be released until near the end of 1994. And while I can appreciate that there was definitely a “Hootie backlash” in the mid 1990s following their dominance of commercial radio, I find it hard to believe that they were the impetus for Duritz and Counting Crows to pump the brakes on their own successes.
(Also, I don’t care how much backlash existed at the time, but “Hold My Hand” is an all-time classic; it was great then, and it’s great now. It peaked at #10 on the Hot 100 and while it charted in several other places in Billboard magazine, it never charted in the Modern Rock Tracks survey, so I’ll never be able to bring it up in this space again, but it’s a 10/10.)
But I digress…
Nevertheless, “Einstein on the Beach” is a weird footnote in the timeline of Counting Crows. As noted, it didn’t appear on August and Everything After, but it was released as a single during the band’s promotional cycle for that album, so it must have been confusing for fans trying to purchase the song. At the time, record companies did not generally release individual singles in order to drive album sales, so “Einstein on the Beach” consequently never had its own commercial single. It was never attached as a bonus track on August and Everything After, either; it could only be purchased as part of the DCG Rarities Vol. 1 album, which, as I noted before, was hardly worth the purchase price given the dearth of commercially popular songs.
That said, radio listeners clamored for it, and it succeeded not only in dominating the modern rock/alternative landscape, but also managed a #45 spot on the Billboard US Radio Songs chart, speaking to its success in the pop realm. But over the course of years, this song seems to be a lost or forgotten song in the now-ponderous catalog of Counting Crows hits, and I’m not sure why.
If nothing else, the song missed an opportunity for resurgence with the release of 2023’s “Oppenheimer” movie, as the song discusses Einstein and loosely alludes to his genius also being his downfall in helping develop something as devastating as a nuclear bomb. Obviously that wouldn’t have fit with the tone of the film, but would have been modestly humorous to put on the movie’s soundtrack.
Einstein's down on the beach, staring into the sand
As everything he believes in is shattered
What you fear in the night in the day comes to call anyway
We all get burned as
Songfacts cites Duritz explaining what the song is about and how it connects to the idea that even the smartest among us can create things that they may regret, and how that realization might be burdensome for the individual.
“It sort of takes the idea of, what if you’re someone who’s a brilliant mathematician like Albert Einstein or any of us doing creative work on something that seems so clean and brilliant, and then it turns out to be an atomic bomb,” Duritz said. “It’s your idea, which is so amazing and graceful in and of itself, but it turns into something not so great.”
In addition to the allusion to Einstein the person, the title of the song itself mirrors that of the Philip Glass opera, “Einstein On The Beach,” which seems to be connected by name only. I tried to listen to some of the opera and, I guess, if opera is your thing, there’s something to be gained from giving it a listen. It didn’t do much for me, but if you like that sort of thing, here’s the full opera for your listening pleasure:
“Einstein on the Beach (For an Eggman)” is probably my all-time favorite Counting Crows song. I do appreciate their catalog and there are some songs, like “Mr. Jones,” that are ubiquitous and omnipresent, even in the present day. Some of their later songs, like “Hanginaround” or “Big Yellow Taxi,” are also terrific in their own ways, and bring back memories of a particular time and place. But, pound for pound, if I had to pick one song from the band’s prodigious catalog to listen to over and over, I would have to choose “Einstein” every time.
First and foremost, I think this is the closest Counting Crows comes to bands like R.E.M. in terms of jangly guitar rock, a particular aesthetic I like in my alternative rock bands. Overall, it feels more in line with bands like Gin Blossoms or The Lemonheads or even Toad the Wet Sprocket, all of which are terrific and provided a nice contrast at the time when bands like Offspring and Green Day were making their pitch to be omnipresent in the mainstream. Thankfully, in the exploding landscape of alternative rock and its mainstream-ificaiton in the mid ‘90s, there was room for myriad styles, and bands like Counting Crows could co-exist with their hardcore punk-rock brethren.
The song doesn’t have a particular element that makes it stand out, but the sum of its parts exceed any individual touches or flourishes. Duritz’s lyrics are pretty straightforward and easy to sing along with, but it’s the harmonies leading into the end of the verses that really stand out for me. There’s a call-and-response style in parts of the chorus, reinforcing the carefree, anthemic nature of the song as a whole. This isn’t Beach Boys-level harmonizing, to be sure, but for a song ostensibly about regret, there’s something carefree and refreshing about the vocal harmonies that makes you forget that regret and want to sing along.
As mentioned above, the song was a modest hit overall, hitting #1 for a single week on the Modern Rock Tracks chart and placing inside the top 50 for U.S. radio songs at the time. Compared to the band’s singles off August and Everything After, “Einstein” is the least popular from a chart and commercial perspective, and as the band ventures forward from this time period, their musical style would eventually become a bigger seller in pop radio than alternative, effectively burying songs like this. The fact that the song wasn’t available to purchase under the Counting Crows name until the release of the band’s compilation best-of album Films About Ghosts (The Best Of...) in 2003 further pushed this song into obscurity.
Counting Crows will not appear in this space again, though they had several modest alternative hits through the rest of the 1990s. Songs like “Hanginaround” would become staples on alternative radio going into the 2000s, but eventually their alternative leanings would give way to more pop-friendly sounds. The band continues to tour and just last week released a new single, “Spaceman In Tulsa,” in advance of the release of a new album, Butter Miracle, The Complete Sweets!, scheduled for release in May 2025.
Overall, though, “Einstein on the Beach (For an Eggman)” is an infectious, pop-sensible track with jangly guitars, a laid-back but catchy melody, and a playful, almost surreal lyrical vibe. It showcases Counting Crows in a more carefree and pop-oriented mode than the more melancholic, introspective songs of August and Everything After, and stands out as one of the more appealing and interesting songs in the band’s catalog.
Rating: 9/10
Chart Check
Other notable MRT chart songs from this time period
It’s a one-week #1 hit this time around, so songs hitting their chart peaks are few and far between. That said, we see the last charting hit from Spin Doctors, a song that’s actually not too bad!
“You Let Your Heart Go Too Fast” by Spin Doctors (#20):
I admit I never listened to anything from the Spin Doctors outside of the big hit singles from their 1992 album Pocket Full of Kryptonite, so the singles released off their follow-up album Turn It Upside Down are brand new to my ears. I already talked about “Cleopatra’s Cat,” which was fine, but their follow-up single “You Let Your Heart Go Too Fast” was also a nice surprise. It’s pretty decent, you guys! Due to myriad lineup issues and the health of lead singer Chris Barron, the band effectively fell off the map commercially in the late 1990s, but they continue to tour and release new music to this day.
In fact, much like Counting Crows, Spin Doctors are releasing a new album in 2025, titled Face Full of Cake, due to be released in April 2025. The lead single from the album, “Still A Gorilla,” is available now to whet your appetite for new Spin Doctors stuff.
Definitely a great song but I’ll always be all in on August and Everything After. “Mr Jones” is probably the weakest song on that album for me with amazing tracks like “Anna Begins”, “Perfect Blue Buildings” and “Rain King”.
I remember that DGC Rarities CD as it had some great tracks, particularly the haunting “Allegory” by Murray Attaway: https://youtu.be/wYVYSLS04Z0
Surprised the DGC Rarities record didn't sell more, because it was definitely priced way lower than a typical CD. I recall $7.99 being the price I paid at a Musicland. There weren't any other hit songs, but Nirvana, Hole, Beck, and Weezer were all pretty successful at the time of release.