Dave Matthews Band: Before These Crowded Streets 2LP Vinyl

Dave Matthews Band: Before These Crowded Streets (2LP, 25th anniversary edition, 180g) [RCA]

Barcode number: 190759901519

C$54.99

Excl. tax

Dave Matthews Band's 1998 album Before These Crowded Streets as a 25th anniversary 2LP set on 180g vinyl, with "Crush," "Stay (Wasting Time)" and "Don't Drink The Water."

Why you'll love it

This 25th anniversary edition spreads the album over two 180g LPs. It debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 421,000 copies in its first week, knocking the Titanic soundtrack off the top after 16 weeks.

This edition

2LP set
25th anniversary edition
180g vinyl

About the album

By their third album, Dave Matthews Band could have kept making cheerful jam-band hits forever. Instead they went darker and more ambitious, with longer songs, Middle Eastern scales, polyrhythms and lyrics about war and history, recorded at The Plant in Sausalito and Electric Lady in New York with Steve Lillywhite producing.

The guest list is something: Béla Fleck on banjo, the Kronos Quartet on strings and Canada's own Alanis Morissette on vocals, while guitarist Tim Reynolds plays on every track before joining the band for good. "Don't Drink The Water" is a menacing epic, "Crush" is a lush, jazzy slow-burner, "Stay (Wasting Time)" is pure sunshine, and "The Dreaming Tree" gave the album its name. Carter Beauford's drumming and LeRoi Moore's saxophone push the band into knottier rhythms than ever, and short interludes and studio snippets tie the songs together like a late-night mixtape.

In August 2025 the band played the whole thing, unannounced, at the Gorge Amphitheatre, a show fans quickly ranked among their best ever. The coffee rings on the cover are part of the artwork, by the way, so please don't try to wipe them off; we've had that conversation.

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