Before These Crowded Streets (studio album)
by Dave Matthews Band
Top albums of 1998 (
Dave Matthews Band bestography
Before These Crowded Streets is ranked 3rd best out of 61 albums by Dave Matthews Band on BestEverAlbums.com.
The best album by Dave Matthews Band is Crash which is ranked number 1712 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 990.
(N.B. Bestographies include all albums by an artist (and their variations), but do not include albums ranked outside the top 100,000).
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Before These Crowded Streets track list
The tracks on this album have an average rating of 81 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).
0
Top-rated track as rated by BestEverAlbums.com members.
Before These Crowded Streets rankings
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Before These Crowded Streets collection
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Before These Crowded Streets ratings
where:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
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Showing latest 5 ratings for this album. | Show all 215 ratings for this album.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Album ratings | Avg. album rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
70/100  | 08/06/2025 21:09 | Hyggevinyl | | 72/100 |
75/100 | 07/24/2025 14:47 | cicadelic | | 73/100 |
70/100 | 06/18/2025 19:24 |  idiotican | | 74/100 |
90/100 | 03/19/2025 18:56 |  Milhaud | | 69/100 |
55/100 | 01/02/2025 19:56 | fabm0 | | 59/100 |
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 has a Bayesian average rating of 73.3/100, a mean average of 71.8/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 73.3/100. The standard deviation for this album is 20.0.
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Before These Crowded Streets comments
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zdwyatt 01/09/2018 15:53
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 10/19/2013 03:13
Easily Dave Matthew's best.
ProfessorSquid 04/28/2013 02:09
Too long.
drivebytornado 03/02/2013 05:00
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?
lightmyway 05/04/2012 23:33
This is a great and complex album. This is the first DMB studio album that sounded like it was made for the studio. Really fine stuff.
After making two great albums of upbeat party jam music, the DMB decided to get serious and somber. The album is brilliant from start to finish. Great music that compliments to tone of each of the songs. Musical interludes between many of the songs provide transitions to make this album a complete unified piece.
Romanelli 05/21/2011 16:13
A real, angry, politically charged and melodic album from Dave Matthews? Yep. This is worth the rest of his catalog put together. "Don;'t Drink The Water" is brilliant.
Sure, DMB can be prone to long-winded jams, but this album is suprisingly brilliant, with complex rhythms, good use of musical tension, and exotic time signatures (The Dreaming Tree is in 7/8).
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