Before These Crowded Streets
by Dave Matthews Band
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Dave Matthews Band bestography
Before These Crowded Streets is ranked 3rd best out of 62 albums by Dave Matthews Band on BestEverAlbums.com.
The best album by Dave Matthews Band is Crash which is ranked number 1787 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 957.
(N.B. Bestographies include all albums by an artist (and their variations), but do not include albums ranked outside the top 100,000).
Listen to Before These Crowded Streets on YouTube
Before These Crowded Streets track list
The tracks on this album have an average rating of 80 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).
Before These Crowded Streets rankings
Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings). Click to see how the rankings are calculated (Last updated: 2 hours ago)
| Year | Source | Chart | Rank | Rank Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 |  Romanelli | My Overall Chart: 1701-1800 | 54/100 | - |
| 2026 | abbolton | Top 40 Greatest Music Albums | 33/40 | 20 |
| 2026 |  covecove | Top 100 Music Albums of 1998 | 49/100 | 3 |
| 2026 |  zags7000 | Top 100 Music Albums of 1998 | 50/100 | 3 |
| 2026 | juanr1096 | Top 71 Music Albums of 1998 | 53/71 | 1 |
| 2026 |  LebowskiRams | Top 15 Music Albums of 1998 | 11/15 | 2 |
| 2026 | Romanelli | Top 83 Music Albums of 1998 | 44/83 | 2 |
| 2026 | fabm0 | Platinum year 1998 | 55/100 | - |
| 2026 | javicho07 | Top 11 Music Albums of 1998 | 10/11 | 1 |
| 2026 |  slatsheit | Top 100 Music Albums of the 1990s | 49/100 | 10 |
| Total Charts: The total number of charts that this album has appeared in. | 124 | |||
| Total Rank Score: The total rank score. | 490 | |||
Before These Crowded Streets collection
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Before These Crowded Streets ratings
Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AVwhere:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.
Showing latest 3 ratings for this album. | Show all 218 ratings for this album.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Album ratings | Avg. album rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ! | 06/25/2026 17:58 | abbolton | 77 | 83/100 |
| ! | 05/30/2026 02:33 | Exist-en-ciel | 15,671 | 70/100 |
| ! | 02/06/2026 09:57 | platus | 5,876 | 74/100 |
Rating metrics:
Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings)
This album is rated in the top 23% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 73.5/100, a mean average of 71.8/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 73.6/100. The standard deviation for this album is 20.5.
Before These Crowded Streets favourites
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Before These Crowded Streets forum mentions
BestEverAlbums 3 days ago in Chart of the day (#5443): By javicho07 BestEverAlbums 09/01/2026 16:00 in Monthly overall chart movements BestEverAlbums 08/01/2026 16:00 in Monthly overall chart movementsBefore These Crowded Streets comments
Top Comments First | Newest First | Positive Sentiment First | Longest Comments First
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zdwyatt TOP 100 COMMENTER 01/09/2018 15:53 | #205074 | TOP COMMENT
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After a couple of albums of bright, jazzy jams, this album is much darker. The addition of a greater variety of sounds makes this the closest thing they've done to a world music album. But it's still DMB: the average track length is just under seven minutes and the virtuoso playing still shines through. One of their best.
Favorite tracks: Stay (Wasting Time), The Stone, Rapunzel
DMB's 3rd album is darker, less accessible, more complex and musically more complicated than any other album they have.
Crush, Stay, Don't Drink the Water are classic DMB songs
Rapunzel and Last Stop are frenetic intense songs.
The 2 previous albums were high on whimsy and good times. Dave is angry here and charged up with political injustices.
This album proved that DMB are more technically skilled than a college jam band, but I don't listen to this album from beginning to end.
Halloween is uncomfortable; a growling groveling Dave Matthews is not pleasant on the ears. Great atmosphere for what he wants to convey but I don't want to hear it more than once
What comes after lacks hooks and is unmemorable.
I respect this offering more than like it.
First 2 album, Busted Stuff, and Groo Crux King are better albums.
The top 3 songs are keepers though on a DMB playlist.
junodog4 TOP 100 COMMENTER 10/19/2013 03:13 | #88833
Easily Dave Matthew's best.
ProfessorSquid
drivebytornado 03/02/2013 05:00 | #66634 | TOP COMMENT
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There are some great moments, and some boring moments, on this one. At 70 minutes, this could've been shaved into a much tighter album, not necessarily cutting songs, as they all have their moments, but trimming down the excess a bit.
But then it wouldn't exactly be a Dave Matthews Band album, would it?
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