Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	62/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
Consequence of Sound
Daily Express
The Guardian
Hot Press	Positive
Irish Independent	Negative
Washington Post (by way of Associated Press)	Positive

Underwater Sunshine (Or What We Did On Our Summer Vacation) is a cover album by American rock band Counting Crows, released on April 10, 2012, on Cooking Vinyl. The album is composed of cover songs, with vocalist Adam Duritz stating, "Sometimes it's great to play someone else's music and try to make it your own. Sometimes it's great just because it's fun."

Produced by both the band and Shawn Dealy, the album features tracks from the 1960s through to the 2010s, and includes songs written by band's early contemporaries, Tender Mercies and Sordid Humor, both of which included members of Counting Crows before the formation of the band.

In March 2009, Counting Crows left Geffen Records, becoming independent recording artists for the first time in eighteen years. The band subsequently decided to record a covers album as their first independent release, with vocalist Adam Duritz noting, "it seemed [like] a good time for it." In April 2011, the band began recording Underwater Sunshine, in Burbank, California, with sound engineer Shawn Dealey co-producing the sessions. Brian Deck, who had previously produced the latter half of the band's previous double album, Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings (2008), mixed the album. The band collaborated to choose their favorite songs to record.

The band worked on versions of Stereophonics' "Local Boy in the Photograph" and Joe Jackson's "It's Different for Girls" during the recording process; however they were not included in the final track listing. They continued to write original songs while recording the album.

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Wikipedia