Dad-Pop? : Where do you stand on Crowded House?

Erm, you wouldn't per chance rate them Dr.C? ;)

No, honestly. Crowded House strike me as the kind of band I will end up liking for their high quality song craft (incidentally high quality song craft and dull dad-pop seems like a non-choice to me, har). At the moment I don't like them one bit.

Split Enz: if you're not severe metal (Krokus) or cult soul (Klymaxx), please spell your name correctly. Dud.

I most often listen to them when I write. Unobtrusive, yet catchy, their songs make perfect pleasant background music that you might want to sing along to occasionally.

I would never force anybody else to listen to them, and honestly, I don't know I would want to spend time with some one who considered Crowded House their favorite band. But try to take them away from me and you'll draw back a bloody stump.

Crowded House was hit and miss for me. Together Alone was a really nice album, I thought, but no one else seemed to like it. The rest I can take or leave, but make sure you keep the abyssmal "Chocolate Cake" single the hell away from me.

Now on-topic: erm...nothing to add.

search - 'four seasons in one day'

What can I say? He got it right first time. A real Johnnie Walker / Richard Skinner / Roger Scott / Bob Harris band. Now quintessential boomerised Radio 2 fodder. Henceforth, dud, but not offensively so, just boringly so; they don't bring forward any opinion from me. But, yeah, dud.

Tom is right : hi-quality songcraft and dull dad-pop are indeed the same. although it's funny how 'craft' is sneered at when applied to song-writing, but is OK when it means layering up samples or slaving over a hot turntable. Hardly any good music comes effortlessly, although it sometimes sounds that way. I don't mean Crowded house are any good, by the way.

My football prediction: Sol Campbell to stay at Tottenham, to be joined by Teddy Sheringham, but not Petit. And Spurs to finish about 7th next season. I've a feeling there could be a shock result tonight.

Fulham will be pretty active in the transfer market as well. ;)

But don't you already like 'high quality song craft' (if not the Crowded House variety)? But seriously, won't you still like the things you like now when you're 40? And if not, why not?

I blame Ned. Even if he didn't start it. I know him. He has powers.

Great game. I went for a walk with my daughter when L*****l went up 2- 0 came back it's 3-1, I sit down and before I know it's 3-3. Nice to know there are still games like this one. LFC would have won on penalties anyhow, only the Dutch are worse penalty-takers than the Spanish.

Second up: Tom E, you are wrong to equate 'finely-honed song-craft' with 'dull dad pop'. OK, we could take a detour into Stevie's very good, well-put, and largely unexplored, point about how 'adult pop' might be a good thing - we really ought to take that detour soon. But for the meantime, I'm going to put that aside, assume that we are talking denigration, and say, Tom, for heaven's sake, you are really out of order here. Why is it OK to slag off - en masse, and with no discrimination - songwriters who think for 5 minutes about what they're doing and are interested in how melodies work, when anyone who slagged off DJs, hip-hop producers, Geri Halliwell's publicists, or whatever, would be machine-gunned at 200 paces? And how would you like it if I said something like 'All computer programmers from Oxford are boring bastards?'

OK, refinement of my comments - drawing attention to 'songcraft' is perhaps the parallel of what I was talking about in the pop thread i.e. drawing attention to producercraft. Whether this is a reason to talk more about songcraft or less about producercraft is up to the individual reader.

I've now even written about Lloyd Cole on FT to assuage your ire.

And while I'm not exactly happy with my job, I'm not a computer programmer, so you can abuse Oxford computer programmers as much as you like.

Shocking attitude Tom. First they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I said nothing. Then they came for the freemasons, but I was not a freemason so I said nothing. Then they came for the trade unionists, so I said nothing. Then they came for Dani Behr, and said 'She's over there, hiding in the cupboard'. etc.

Tom:

>>> drawing attention to 'songcraft' is perhaps the parallel of what I was talking about in the pop thread i.e. drawing attention to producercraft.

I think I understand this - in the pop thread you were saying it was maybe a (slightly) bad thing for people to do that, right? In fact, if memory serves, you were saying that it was a way of denying emotion (or rather, a way of talking that didn't really do justice to emotion); so you're saying that talking about song-craft has roughly the same effect?

But then this -

>>> Whether this is a reason to talk more about songcraft or less about producercraft is up to the individual reader

- has me a tad stumped.

Naturally and predictably, I would rather talk more about the former and less about the latter, at least insofar as the latter means the kind of producers that interest you. But to be honest I'm still not sure I understand this comment.

>>> I've now even written about Lloyd Cole on FT to assuage your ire.

You mean FT exists?

>>> And while I'm not exactly happy with my job, I'm not a computer programmer, so you can abuse Oxford computer programmers as much as you like.

Hey, everybody! We can abuse Oxford computer programmers as much as we like! Who wants to start?

There is a bigger issue here, somewhere, about the way that certain ways of talking about music - which concern sound, texture, atmosphere, rhythm, technology, plus contexts and reception - have, on one hand, provided a tremendous enrichment of the critical vocabulary (visible, I guess, in a lot of what people write on FT / ILM), but have also displaced a sense of 'the song' as a unit of attention, or even a belief in 'the song' as an autonomous entity (I think I mean: analytically relatively autonomous from the other things I just mentioned). While I think the enrichment is (like I just said) terrific, I feel out on a limb in terms of conceptions of the song, because in my world 'the song' is still the primary unit of thought about music, and I have what might - probably pejoratively - be called a 'Platonic' sense of it. As I have in part said before, the only alternatives are musicology proper (to which I am inadequate) and earnest lyrical analysis (which I have argued in the past is largely inappropriate and should, indeed, be integrated into a more holistic sense of what's going on in a musical track or situation). So I still think that something is missing from the critical vocabulary.

I need to think this through more.

Mark S, and everybody else, will be unsurprised to hear that I don't know what 'Get Your (Ur, was it?) Freak On' (?) is.

First TH says,

>>> Two phenomena have recently violated the wholeness of the Song. Dance music and DJing is one. DJs generally playing tracks that are explicitly meant to be shut off well before the song ends, and begun well after it's started. The songs are relational, and not sufficient unto themselves. [etc]

I don't doubt that this is true, and that you have described the situation very well. But it doesn't affect my 'argument' - I mean, my view of what, for my purposes, a song is - because I am not really interested in that kind of music.

>>> The second 'ting, which is still as yet a bit unformed in my mind (so take me apart please) -- is that clearly, somewhere along the line, most pop artists have REALLY started paying attention to production detail.

Again, this is probably right, and is well-observed. But once again, I really don't think that it affects my conception of the song one way or another. You can write a song, then stick any number of details on it (in a titchy and unknown way I have done that myself) - the song remains the song.

>>> I think this begins roughly when pop artists became expected to write their own songs, be "original." ... I guess what I'm proposing is that once the expectation was set that studio recordings of pop musicians were to be original, authentic, sui generis, it stood to reason that the sonic texture (which people were just starting to notice as hi-fis and headphones became more common) must be as well.

Hm - you seem to be equating the moment when people had to *write their own songs* with the moment when bands had to *have their own sound* (roughly speaking). I don't really see why these two should necessarily be the same at all. That's partly because I view writing a song and forming a sound / tinkering in the studio as two different things; partly because I can imagine distinctive sounds being applied to any number of people who did not write their own material. Your overall point about a trajectory towards distinctive sounds seems right - I just don't quite see the link with songwriting.

>>> None of this really argues that the sonics and lyric significance of a song can't be holistically balanced.

Well, to repeat: I am not particularly talking about *lyrics*, which I tend to view as the poor relation among the parts of a song. Perhaps I shouldn't. Stevie T has argued very well, in the past, for the ongoing importance of lyrics on pop records.

>>> I think Get Ur Freak On does this very well, actually.

Again - don't know what this is.

>>> But I think the historical moment when a song could be complete in and of itself (am I demagoguing you pf? or not understanding?) has passed, and the body really is violated with all kinds of glitter paint and textural nipple-piercings.

No, I don't think you are misunderstanding me; and you put your case beautifully. But I think that I disagree with you quite strongly all the same. From my point of view, nothing has ever changed re. the integrity of 'the song'. If 'the song' has ever had any integral identity in and of itself, then it still does. From my point of view, it would be quite nice to think more about sonic textures and funny effects; but most of the time the only resources available are a pen, a sheet of A4, and an acoustic guitar that needs restringing. As a 'sonic effect', that gets rather samey; the 'effects', such as they are, had better be in the 'song'.

Together Alone is a solidly wonderful album. 'Distant Sun' is just about the perfect Crowded House tune. Surprised they don't have more fans on this thread, tbh.

hmmm. the first album has some great moments. am a huge HUGE fan of some of the stuff he wrote and sang w/split enz. but much of CH never really sank into me the way it might have. saw him play at a record store almost a decade ago and it was one of those crazy moments-- couldn't believe that i was in the same room with someone from the other side of the planet (literally!) who wrote so many amazing songs. like i was obsessed with split enz and neil finn from age 10 on. what a sweetheart.

THE SOUND OF TE AWAMUTU HAD A TRULY SACRED RING!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP2u5fA4g4Y

this song is all-time afaiac

can't get enough of that frenzy era, when all their chips were down, on the verge of breaking up, and they would blaze through all of these barrelhouse piano-driven songs before their sound magically coalesced into the mtv-friendly true colours period

"Time On Earth" is shockingly good. It's the sound of Neil Finn refining his craft and pouring his heart and soul into it.

wow, thanks, gerald. i had no idea that record even existed. listening to a couple of songs right now, and your description is spot-on.

Heh, not much of a description for the uninitiated! The album is a giant tribute to Paul Hester, former CH drummer, who had taken his own life. In that sense it's a heavy album but Neil's put so much love and light into it that the sadness is well balanced.

And if it hasn't been mentioned, Neil's finest solo album is "Try Whistling This". Such a majestic, deeply-layered album. As the title indicates, it's a different approach to pop but still spot-on Finn.

yeah, i need to look into that, too!

at the in-store i saw him at, he played anytime. this was a matter of weeks or so after 9-11. genuinely moving

Finn's second solo album is great, too, and his son's first is strong as well (and eerily a la dad).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtfmQvndTiI

And just in case folks missed it, that famed NZ show with Finn backed by Johnny Marr, bassist from Soul Coughing, drummer and guitarist from Radiohead and Lisa Germano. Which evinced this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sije12JaKdA

The first album is actually the one I like least. Sure, some good songs (as always from Neil Finn), but the production is kind of boring and got much better and more detailed from the second album onwards. The rest is pure perfection, particularly the pre-hiatus ones.

I don't care for Split Enz aside from the American non-hits -- too damn fussy. But since I listened to Crowded House first I admit to being tainted.

Still love Woodface.

Well, there's Split Enz under Tim and then Split Enz under Tim and Neil. The latter is (more or less) the era with the hits, as such, but even the old stuff boasts some goodies. Like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfytdyMy2-k

But lil bro Neil brought the pop smarts.

possib my favorite neil finn moment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDJ3th_qhaI

bye-bye blues!

never give up, giving in, it's like kissing good-bye!

not quite the right thread for this, but : time and tide is underrated record imo

Well, there's Split Enz under Tim and then Split Enz under Tim and Neil.

The former - at least the first couple of albums, is effectively Split Enz under Tim and Phil (Judd).

Only to pedants.

Nel Finn's way with ballads is pretty incredible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VwXNdVMggU&feature=related

I like Crowded House a lot, but Together Alone is miles above the rest of their output. They sound edgier and rougher, with Youth producing instead of Froom. And so many great album tracks - 'Catherine Wheels', 'In My Command', 'Nails In My Feet' are all terrific.

I absolutely love Mitchell Froom's production style (except on the first album, which didn't sound like a Froom production). That said, Youth did an excellent job with the "Together Alone" album as well, except for a couple of tracks where the guitar amps were turned a bit too loud.

'Together Alone' and 'Woodface' are CLASSIC ALBUMS. As is 'One Nil'.

Split Enz is it's own story. 'Dizrhytmia' (sic) is beyond great. 'Charlie' is among the best songs I've ever heard, undeniably.

It's been a while since I heard "One Nil", but in my mind it lacks something compared to "Try Whistling This", which feels like a more complex and layered album to me.

Well, there's Split Enz under Tim and then Split Enz under Tim and Neil. The latter is (more or less) the era with the hits, as such, but even the old stuff boasts some goodies. Like: (youtube preview sceeen with a picture of Tim and Neil)

sorry, obviously I meant sceeeeen

Reissue campaign imminent/in-progress. Remastered catalog, plus bonus discs of demos, b-sides and other goodies. Not that Finn demos tend to be radically different. They call it song craft for a reason!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WDm2mUgZg0

Been waiting for Woodface LP reissue for a while now.

Got my copy of Together Alone, one of my favourite albums of all time, yesterday. It's got a nasty scratch on the fourth track, so I'm getting a replacement, but the rest of it sounded lush as fuck. The title track closes with applause, which I've never heard before - it's not on the CD version I've had for years. No bonus tracks on the vinyl edition, but like I said, it sounded divine.

The applause was always on my CD version. It's the Maori choir and percussion troupe clapping.

Woodface deserves a remaster, IMO. Last time I listened to it, I felt it didn't sound as great these days as I could be. Froom's production on it remains excellent, and the songwriting is still as potent as ever. I always listen to it starting from track 2 these days, though!

I heard on Facebook that the download code that comes with the Vinyl includes some bonus tracks.

Oh awesome - relieved to hear that.

The applause was always on my CD version. It's the Maori choir and percussion troupe clapping.

Ha! Crazy. Maybe it was edited off on the UK version for some reason.

The shows I saw them do around Together Alone were some of the best I've seen. The chemistry Paul Hester brought was just wonderful.

Weirdly, I had the UK CD, because it came out a month later in the US. So who knows.

I saw the final tour with Hester (Sheryl Crow opened, cigarette in one hand, beer in the other) and it was good but he was a bit down. For some reason I had a backstage pass. Talked to Nick a bit, iirc. Really nice.

Thanks to my girlfriend Kate -- an absolute CH/Neil obsessive who saw the band numerous times back in the 90s, to the point where the bandmembers and crew knew her as part of a coterie of similarly dedicated souls -- I've been listening to all the remasters here these past couple of days. I never really followed them or any of the overall Finn brothers arc to a great degree -- like a lot of people here in the US, I knew the big hits on the first album, was aware they continued on for a while having greater success elsewhere, and generally knew they made nice enough music. I think I would have enjoyed their work back then just as much as I am now, really, so it's not a great revelation so much as it's a 'yeah, this works, very lovely indeed.' Kate's been mentioning a wide variety of stories and memories in the context with a lot of songs and especially the bonus cuts -- she really liked Paul Hester a heck of a lot as well, and still misses him very much. Since I'm coming into it all pretty cold otherwise I'll be interesting to see what I make of the two reunion albums -- Kate's not really taken by those but she did enjoy the tours for them, despite the one inevitable change in the lineup.

I've loved them since I was a wee Veg. Paul was always my favorite (also he showed his bum a lot which helps) - cried for a whole day when he passed.

I relistened to their best-of after I watched the 20-year anniversary concert the other week; it's crazy how many gorgeous songs they have. Neil turns a lovely phrase, doesn't he?.

I love Woodface still maybe the most for nostalgia & there's no sound better for my heart than Tim & Neil in harmony

I can appreciate a good Finn as much as anyone but I think what makes them boring and dad rock is their lack of mystery, danger, and unpredictability

I don't really listen to Crowded House for "mystery" and "danger", though.

Yeah, that seems...a strange judgment. If anything what I've been appreciating about this deep dive is how they master an approach that is straightforward enough and then heavily finesse it to introduce unexpected twists and turns. It's not 'mysterious' but it's elegantly skillful.

Funny -- I posted my favorite Neil Finn songs the other day.

@MrSotosyn, I think on your list you said you wouldn't include I Got You, but then you did?

I changed my mind but didn't edit the post.

if earnest, sincere & heartfelt = "boring" then all aboard the boring train to dadtown

plenty of mystery and danger on Together Alone, to my ears, but that's not really why I love Crowded House, or that album most of all theirs.

Just put Woodface on and skipped straight to... 'Whispers and Moans'! I get this song in my head quite a lot whenever I think of this LP... this and 'Tall Trees', for some reason. What's with the shouting part at the end, though!?

"She Goes On"!

Man, 'Chocolate Cake' surely must rank as one of the worst things they ever did. Still, even now, I can't believe that of all the songs on Woodface, they somehow decides that 'Chocolate Cake' should be the fucking lead single. I heard that 'It's Only Natural' was originally slated as the lead single but they changed their minds (or lost their minds, IMO) ... and to put it as the opening track, too!

*decided

"Chocolate Cake" must surely reek.

I never heard "Chocolate Cake" on college radio even though it climbed to #2 on the modern rock chart. I did hear "It's Only Natural" a lot that early fall though.

'Weather With You' was probably the biggest hit off the record here... I don't recall seeing the video to 'Chocolate Cake' until well after it was released. I don't think I ever heard it on the radio.

It couldn't have done 'em much favours in the US, either ("and the excess of fat on your Anerican bones/will cushion the impact as you sink like a stone" ... ouch!)

I'm guessing that Tim was mostly the driving force behind 'Chocolate Cake' ... it doesn't feel like a Neil song to me at all.

Saw Chocolate Cake on the Chart Show when it was released, memorable song but no hit. Never understood all the hate it gets

Love "Chocolate Cake." Could have done with more of that darkness & spikiness resulting from Tim's sojourn in the band. (Given how that silly vs sardonic vibe fit Hessie's personality, it would have been interesting if a Tim / Paul cowriting element had sprung up, should Tim have been able to stay: the two were roommates during their overlap in Split Enz, I just remembered while typing this sentence.)

I like/love all Crowded House and Finn solo to varying degrees, but the other day I was reminded of Christgau's massive antipathy toward the group and I was trying to figure out why. The conclusion I came to is that Neil Finn is a great melody guy, good with hooks and gorgeous stuff, but maaaaaaybe not the best songwriter, in the total package sense. Hmm, that's harsher than I mean, since I love his songs. Maybe it's that he's not a particularly memorable lyricist, there's no wit or smarts or much more beyond the most general of things going on with his words. Which is not a problem, really - again, I like/love all Crowded House and Finn solo to varying degrees - but it helped me understand how someone might not like them so much, or how one might approach them as a cult act rather than a proper pop act. Back to Christgau, he mentions pretension, iirc, but that's actually something I think Neil Finn lacks, and, ironically, what maybe makes him fall short for some (but not me).

Anyway, in some ways the first 7 Worlds Collide live album is a great entree. It's a sign of his respect from fellow musicians that he could get Johnny Marr, a chunk of Radiohead, and Eddie Vedder, among others, as his support band. Lately I like his first two solo albums best. For CH, for some reason I've always gravitated toward Temple of Low Men.

One of my faves of his:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN8lJmZpZYA

Another:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVoNbOJpIYU

I like/love all Crowded House and Finn solo to varying degrees, but the other day I was reminded of Christgau's massive antipathy toward the group and I was trying to figure out why. The conclusion I came to is that Neil Finn is a great melody guy, good with hooks and gorgeous stuff, but maaaaaaybe not the best songwriter, in the total package sense. Hmm, that's harsher than I mean, since I love his songs. Maybe it's that he's not a particularly memorable lyricist, there's no wit or smarts or much more beyond the most general of things going on with his words. Which is not a problem, really - again, I like/love all Crowded House and Finn solo to varying degrees - but it helped me understand how someone might not like them so much, or how one might approach them as a cult act rather than a proper pop act. Back to Christgau, he mentions pretension, iirc, but that's actually something I think Neil Finn lacks, and, ironically, what maybe makes him fall short for some (but not me).

idk "Can't Carry On," "Don't Dream It's Over," lots of stuff on Woodface -- good words. Christgau's rancor is overwrought.

Maybe it's that he's not a particularly memorable lyricist, there's no wit or smarts or much more beyond the most general of things going on with his words.

Distant Sun is a great lyric. A lot of the stuff on Together Alone is really memorable and thoughtful to me. Christgau dislike a lot of great stuff.

It's weird, I think a lot of his lyrics work, and I like a lot of them, but I'm not sure how many of them are more than just kind of vague place holders. Honestly, when it comes to Neil Finn I have trouble balancing my own fandom with anything close to objectivity. As far as I'm concerned all his lyrics are memorable, because I remember them.

But, like, take Neil Finn buddy and frequent tourmate Paul Kelly. I think Paul Kelly is a brilliant lyricist, but a lot more meat and potatoes when it comes to melodies and songs.

I should stress that I find the vague elusiveness of many of Finn's lyrics appealing myself. They don't get in the way, and in a general sense help him convey his particularly brilliant brand of melancholy, especially in songs like "Don't Dream It's Over," or "Four Seasons in One Day," or "Distant Sun," that sort of thing. But when I think back to his several albums with Split Enz, several albums with Crowded House, several solo albums and side projects, dozens of dozens of great songs, there are only a few lines that ever jump out at me. Even then, "My possessions are causing me suspicion but there's no proof" is a great but meaningless line, imo. Of all his stuff the opening couplet of deep cut "In The Lowlands" always stands out: "Oh hell, trouble is coming/Out here in panic and alarm." That's a great start, very evocative, but I'm not sure it ever pays off. Not that it needs to! But if the (to me) prima facia pleasures of his voice and melodies don't do it for you, I don't think there's much else to convince the unconvinced. Which iirc was Christgau's argument: hooks are easy. Not coincidentally, I've heard Finn say the same thing, that the tunes and melodies come easy, but that he struggles with the words.

Most lyrics by anybody are vague place holders!

Of all his stuff the opening couplet of deep cut "In The Lowlands" always stands out: "Oh hell, trouble is coming/Out here in panic and alarm."

I'm glad you like this one too; I find myself humming it every few months. But it wouldn't stand out without his singing or the arrangement.

I've always really loved Distant Sun because of the way he seems to balance mulling over the challenge of keeping a long-term relationship strong and resonant with this chorus that evokes the idea of romantic love as larger-than-life rapture or magic - to go from "Tell me all the things you would change / I don't pretend to know what you want... No fire where I lit my spark / I am not afraid of the dark" to "Seven worlds will collide / whenever I am by your side / And dust from a distant sun / Will shower over everyone" is just brilliant to me, and very affecting.

I am soppy as all get-out though, so.

Nobody's mentioned "Fall At Your Feet" -- this is definitely their POO moment. The harmonies on the chorus are just sublime. It's the type of thing that catches the attention of people who are only passively listening to the song.

Mind you, this is coming from an admitted fan of dull dad-pop. And even I lost a lot of respect for the band after I recently watched the video for "Something So Strong".

I love when the harmonies go faaaalllll and Froom (or Tim Finn?) play that simple keyboard part.

And even I lost a lot of respect for the band after I recently watched the video for "Something So Strong".

aww they're adorable

Directed by Alex Proyas, said video.

I said in the Paul Hester RIP thread a decade ago that this video is one of the few convincing period depictions of guys in videos who look like they genuinely love each other.

Christgau's argument: hooks are easy.

I'd like to thank hit songwriter and the Dean Ween of music critics - Robert Christgau - for this observation.

From "Crowded House: Something So Strong", By Chris Bourke:

'Something So Strong' was also directed by an Australian, Evan English, but the band have mixed feelings about the excruciatingly wholesome clip. 'It ended up looking like a commercial for margarine,' says Nick...
The intention of English, a left-winger, was to 'tap into the soft, white underbelly of middle America,' says Neil... 'I think it looked a bit much like a toothpaste commercial myself.'

Ah, thanks for that. Proyas directed at least one early video IIRC.

Hester's backflip is a bit much. Remind see of that Greil Marcus line about Terence Trent D'Arby's deeply rehearsed laugh in "Wishing Well."

Nobody's mentioned "Fall At Your Feet" -- this is definitely their POO moment. The harmonies on the chorus are just sublime. It's the type of thing that catches the attention of people who are only passively listening to the song.

Yeah, the harmonies on that song are sublime, but the strange thing about that song is the middle eight, where if you listen closely to the backing vocal, you realise it's shouting along with the lead vocal but mixed so it sits behind the lead.

Yeah, Fall At Your Feet is another winner. Finn is just such a great singer. His voice suits his material perfectly.

A keeper from the comeback record:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vto40GYUNY8

Excellent Johnny Marr co-write off the comeback:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Oi9w7DgDiY

Just for fun - funn - Finn and Marr doing "There is a Light:"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNYL1gitgm8

jesus why does Marr insist on cutting his hair in the least flattering manner

See: this thread: T/S: Aging Mod Dudes vs Aging Punk Dudes

Neil Finn buddy and frequent tourmate Paul Kelly.

"frequent" if you mean "they played together on all 21 dates of a month-long collaborative tour, once"

Dude, when Crowded House toured America behind Woodface I'm pretty sure Paul Kelly opened up on every date. They've been sympatico and in sync for a long time.

Actually, maybe it was around the time of the first Crowded House LP, which is more or less when Gossip was released. Anyway, they played together plenty of times.

^^^ Johnny Marr was still in his "I invented Oasis" phase which affected his hairstyles and dress sense for an agonisingly long duration

I rank those albums.

really smart likening of Dream to Live to Tell! worth posting from a tent in the middle of the Serengeti.

he's just so damn good

Shoutout for 'Private Universe' — I approve.

LOL re "Chocolate Cake". Such a mess.

I really liked Temple of Low Men as a tween (premature Dad-ish tastes?) but the likes of "Mansion in the Slums" and "Sister Madly" (a big hit on radio locally) got old quickly. Perhaps I preferred the lyrical "vague placeholders" elsewhere. I'd definitely add "In the Lowlands" to the "keeper" column, at the very least.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZggTaHMoQYs

This is pretty hip stuff for Crowded House, closer to the spirit of Split Enz in some ways. I've gotta assume Neil was nudged a bit by his two sons, who are both in the band, as well as the return of Froom.

Another good new one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HGjvQxGxNQ

They're really flaunting the lack of social distancing they need to do in NZ :)

New songs are much in the vein of the Pajama Club album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDff0Mjvij8

Both points make sense, given more than half of the band is Finn and his family! But yeah, Australia and NZ seem to be pretty good, strict travel restrictions aside. Even Froom is out there, iirc I remember reading about him flying over and quarantining in advance of a series of live dates.

"come to the Island, where we can save our souls"

This is a good news day for us in Crowded House. Following a move of alert level 3 to level 2 last night, we are now free to gather in a room here at Roundhead Studios and play music, what a joy! Mitchell Froom and Nick Seymour have been released from 2 weeks’ quarantine this morning (after multiple negative swabs) and both are now present in this very room. We are together again.

"weather with you" has a prechorus that only comes up once -- and it isn't before a chorus. that is one weird great pop song.

I played that song with a local band, but I found the structure incoherent. "Why is there a bridge out of nowhere in this song?"

and for a section that only comes up once, it's very memorable. I had no idea it was only used once until I thought about it

I don't mean to beat up on this inoffensive song, but the other thing I dislike are the harmonies - it sounds like a song for solo voice that they decided to sing in harmony just because another singer showed up.

Crowded House is close to the sort of thing I usually like (and I enjoy Split Enz), but in 90% of their songs there's some production quirk, banal lyric or ill-fitting arrangement that puts me off.

Harmonies in which section? Everything in the song sounds fine to me. The end is also weird though, with the guitars coming back at the last second

Though I do like the song, I will say as an American, it's baffling to think this was a popular song anywhere. I've never heard it in the wild and as established it's a pretty unusual song

The single version moves the chorus to right after the bridge, so there is that

The lead vocal is sung in harmony, and it would sound better and less cluttered as a single voice.

Pretty close harmonies, too, so that it almost sounds double-tracked, which is what I've always found kind of distracting. I agree it would have sounded better with just Neil singing, but, hey, there's a reason Tim didn't last long in Crowded House (though I love the Finn Brothers records).

Watched gig from 91 or 92 with him still in the band and tension was really obvious

Imagine you're the leader of a moderately successful band, then your adolescent younger bro joins and you realize he's far more talented at knocking out bangers, most of which make them an international phenomenon. Then he duplicates the success with his own band. As a reward, he sticks you behind the keyboards.

Tight-ass show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOrRk5M-Lc8

That's the one. It's the other two who seem less keen with that line-up

I love the three new songs on their Recurring Dream best-of, but almost nothing else they did sticks for me. I don't know what those three have in common (different drummer?).

you like those new songs more than "Don't Dream It's Over," "Whispers and Moans," "Better Be Home Soon," etc?

Yes, strange! I like "Don't Dream It's Over" in Neil Finn's acoustic version on the Diana tribute. Maybe Mitchell Froom is to blame.

Huh, those new tracks on the best-of are among the Froom-iest. "Not the Girl You Think You Are" is lovely, but it's pretty much all Optigan. Then again, so is this Neil Finn produced Dave Dobbyn track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20qq1kl2kYg

Oh, I thought he had stopped producing them at that point. I have no explanation then.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought those are Froom productions. I know he produced the second Finn Brothers record, and returned to producing crowded house later. and Tchad Blake I think has always been involved.

Blake engineered the first three, and had co-producer credit with Froom and Finn on the Recurring Dream singles. I'm pretty sure he wasn't involved at all on the fourth album (produced by Youth in New Zealand), or on the "Crowded House II" albums.

Blake did produce the "Finn" album released in the US as Finn Brothers, but didn't work with Froom on the first/second "Finn Brothers" album. (Also NB: the Finn brothers' home demos for what became Woodface finally came out officially on a deluxe edition four years ago.)

Froom has not only produced the upcoming Crowded House Mk III album, he has joined the band as keyboardist, been playing remotely on their lockdown live videos, and moved to New Zealand earlier this year to take part in the world tour starting on Wednesday, in which the band will travel to every country that it is safe to enter and tour.


almost nothing else they did sticks for me. I don't know what those three have in common (different drummer?).

No, Hester came back for those three,* and is even in the videos. His replacement, Peter Jones, only played on some demos that ended up on their b-sides-y comp.

*but! Ricky Fataar played on Weather With You.

Yeah, no Froom or Blake on "Together Alone" or "Intriguer" iirc, but some combination of those two on almost everything else for a while, including the two Finn Bros. albums and Neil's first two solo records. Wow, I didn't know that Peter Jones, who replaced Hester in Crowded House Mk I, died in 2012. Brain cancer.

Even among their stellar catalogue, Together Alone is such a rich, rich gem.

xp

Huh, yeah, Blake even mixed a few tracks on CH2's first album Time On Earth, and co-produced and co-recorded and mixed the Neil & Liam album with Mick Fleetwood on from 2018*.

Together Alone (1994), 7 Worlds Collide (2009 Neil-convened supergroup with Johnny Marr, Bic Runga, Lisa Germano, half each of Radiohead and Wilco etc), and Pajama Club (2011 stoned home-recorded collabo between Neil and wife Sharon) look to be the only published album-length projects Neil's ever done without one of them, since the first collab in 1986. I'd put an asterisk on Time On Earth and Try Whistling This (two tracks produced by Blake, another seven mixed) but still.

*now that Fleetwood is all "I'm pals with Lindsay Buckingham again and want to record with him," and was grumpy about the record company not letting him release several albums of stoner jams with Neil before he got Finn in to replace Lindsay, it'd be hilairs if they formed a Buckingham McFinn while the rest of Fleetwood Mac maintain the rage.

Even among their stellar catalogue, Together Alone is such a rich, rich gem.

Yes it's a bummer that that lineup of classic-era Crowded House (the longest-lasting!) didn't get to make another record, preferably with Youth.

The single version moves the chorus to right after the bridge, so there is that

huh! had no idea such a thing existed. but just listened to the demo version they released on the deluxe version of "woodface" where they do indeed do it that way, and you can hear it as the proper pre-chorus it clearly was meant to be, and... it totally doesn't work.

also, xxxxxxp, i love the close harmonies.

only published album-length projects Neil's ever done without one of them

I *think* neither Froom nor Blake had anything to do with "Dizzy Heights" (which is Dave Fridmann) or "Out of Silence."

I completely forgot those existed (never listened to them or the CHmkII records) (Liam produced Out Of Silence)

The CHmkII albums are pretty good, though there's nothing that really distinguishes them from Neil Finn solo albums. I think the first two solo Neil albums are excellent, but his subsequent albums have been really, well, yeah, loose and stoned. They come across more like R&D than albums to me.

I think this breaks it down to an extent btw:

1986-2007: nine albums + Recurring Dream, eight with at least some Froom and/or Blake
2009-2017: five albums, no Blake/Froom
2018-2021: two albums, one with each.

(the last would have been out in 2020 but for pandemic. He's kept close to an album every two years average for 34 years, and those Fleetwood jams would have tipped it.)

Yes it's a bummer that that lineup of classic-era Crowded House (the longest-lasting!) didn't get to make another record, preferably with Youth.

agreed. Hester was such a wonderful presence when they played live, too. And Youth really seemed to loosen Neil up.

(I specifically meant the Finn/Hester/Seymour/Hart version of CH, that held together for nearly two and a half years - a wild record for the original version of the band,* given that Finn seemed to (accurately**) regard Hester as the only important member of the group, and either get annoyed with, or be offputting to, anyone else who hung around.)

Yes, Hester rules the live albums both as co-bandleader and as chatty goofball. I used to keep a cassette cued in the radio on Friday afternoons, after he left the band, because he'd be the standby guest on a nationally-networked drive-time show, driving in to talk nonsense if a proper celeb couldn't be bothered to turn up that close to the weekend.

*(that lineup had a trial in the first half of 1989, then ran from late '91 til Hester left in April '94, with Hart becoming the first actual full-time fourth member since 1985, in '92.)

** (though the version with Eddie Rayner on keyboards c. 1987-88 was THEE BEST EVER, he probably wouldn't have fit as well into the jammier live style later, or gelled with Youth)

That live record that came with the Recurring Dreams CD is the only Crowded House I ever properly heard, but it's pretty good, this version of Sister Madly where Hester makes a mistake and derails the song completely is pretty amusing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz7Wvd4oBHA

I used to have a bunch of live recordings, which are tons of fun. My fave was probably this one, the last night of the Woodface tour:

https://archive.org/details/crowdedhouselondon9nov1991

I like the new album, more than the last two CH albums.

for the life of me I dont understand the issues expressed with "weather with you" up above. Yes it's sung in harmony...so? Yes the prechorus doesn't lead immediately into the chorus...so? That makes it more interesting and less predictable to me. The thing is still an earworm!

The harmony clutters up the song.

no, you clutter up the song

i like the lush vocal feel of that song

it's not an elliott smith 4 track thing

On some days I do find the close harmony kind of annoying.

for the life of me I dont understand the issues expressed with "weather with you" up above. Yes it's sung in harmony...so? Yes the prechorus doesn't lead immediately into the chorus...so?

as the person who introduced the great prechorus controversy, i agree with you! i just found it weird and interesting and worth a mention. i think it's great. i don't understand the issues w/the harmony either.

I was watching a 60 Minutes Australia piece on the band, and it was ... kinda stupid. Like, they keep talking about the magical chemistry of the new line-up. Well, duh. Nick has been there from the beginning, Mitchell Froom has produced or played on half their recordings, and Liam and Elroy are Neil's kids, so ... yeah. And then they keep referring to this as some sort of grand reunion, dismissing the previous reunion - which lasted five years and produced two albums - as "short lived." It has, however, assuaged a longstanding regret of mine, though. I interviewed Neil some years back, and I was struck by what a relatively dull subject he was, not at all what I expected. I figured it was my fault. But the more interviews I read and see with him, the more I realize that, no, it's really just him. Like, he dutifully does the rounds but (perhaps understandably) finds the whole thing something of a chore.

I like the new album, more than the last two CH albums.

I completely bounced off the last lineup (without ever putting in any effort, Hessie 4 eva), but this really does sound like a band. For obvious reasons, of course, but it does feel like it was worth sacking the last group for, instead of indulgent nepotism.

xp - that's something the core trio of the original band had: a spark between the personalities, and a dedicated jester, to make their press more fun than Neil's "I like to smoke pot at home with my wife and write songs, and there's not much to say about that" vibes

Yeah, otm. And re: the new lineup, I think it helps that Liam is really, really talented, as a writer and player, and not just a (more or less) hired gun like Mark Hart was. And Froom has been so integral to the band's sound that it makes sense that he would be, well, integrated into the band. Elroy ... I don't think Crowded House needs a particularly flashy drummer at this point, just a guy to keep the beat. I remember when Neil was touring his first couple solo albums, his group featured some ringers, like Lisa Germano and Sebastian Steinberg, but the drummer was just a guy doing what he needed to do to propel the shuffling lo-fi Froom/Blake studio vibe.

(btw, those first two Finn solo albums featured some cool contributors, from the aforementioned to Wendy & Lisa and Jim Moginie and, I just noticed, Tony Allen!)

Drummers on those tours were (or included) bloke from Radiohead, bloke from Creation band Arnold, and... Liam Finn.

Pretty sure it was none of the above! Liam would have been 19, so ... maybe, but I'm sure I would have remembered him being introduced. It was definitely not Phil Selway. Looks like Arnold toured with Finn in the UK in 1998, so he would have met their drummer, but no idea who that was. Made extra hard to search when your band name is a person's name.

Here's the Finn band at the time, 2002, doing one of my fave Finn songs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHmdD4Qhr7c

I think the other guy in that lineup was Shon Sullivan, aka Goldenboy, who also played with Elliott Smith.

Arnold bloke was their lead singer too, I think, and returned for at least the 2001 UK tour.

Goldenboy was a frequent band member around that time, yeah, as was Johnny Marr.

Saw Finn in 1999 and 2000 and think Steinberg / Germano were in the group at least once, and am sure Liam and Jim Moginie were in 1999, but can't remember who drummed (though I think there was some instrument-swapping in '99).

(Also saw Neil & Tim with Nick Seymour and Don McGlashan backing them around 2005, and teenage Elroy miiiight have been drumming?)

((Also saw the Violet Femmes as a five-piece including Mogine in the '00s.))

Don't think Marr (or Selway) did more than the one-off live show or maybe two, but I could be wrong. I know Marr co-wrote a song on the first Crowded House reunion album.

Marr toured multiple countries, but played less than half of each show.

(At least partly to stay under the radar, so he could just enjoy playing and people wouldn't be buying tickets to see him, as you'd never know if he was actually getting up in that city.)

re interviews, several times I've had the impression that Neil has anger issues - if so he keeps a tight lid on it, which I speculate makes him a dull subject, but I remember stories about outbursts at audiences who talked during songs etc.

OK, listening to the new one again, it is of course absolutely lovely stuff, and it does sound pretty organic, but it doesn't really sound like Crowded House, or at least how that band used to sound. Nor does it really need to. When Finn put out those first two impeccably weird and knotty but of course still super well crafted solo albums I always felt it was him shaking off the shackles of commercial expectations. Not that he really had any at the point, or, you know, expected them, but his whole mode of writing seemed to shift, imo, applying his knack for melodies and hooks to stranger sounds and structures within the singer-songwriter pop mode. I like a lot of the two comeback Crowded House albums, but they felt like they were splitting the difference to me; in fact iirc at least the first one actually *was* intended as another Neil solo album at one point. Anyway, this one is much more relaxed, easing into the idea of a band in spirit even if it doesn't necessarily recall the specific band in name. Which is to say, a gifted songwriter who, yeah, sounds like he'd be just fine staying home to smoke pot with his wife, but if you need him to write some amazing tunes, he's down with that, too.

I'm not familiar with Liam's work, is it worth delving into?

I really liked his first solo album I'll Be Lighting, and loved the one-man-band shows he was doing around then. But then, like his dad, he kept doing all these one offs and EPs and collaborations and I got distracted.

*checks discography* I haven't listened to a whole new Liam record in twenty years *ossifies promptly*

2000 Betchadupa EP by Betchadupa
2001 The 3D EP by Betchadupa
2002 The Alpabetchadupa by Betchadupa
2004 Aiming For Your Head by Betchadupa
2007 I'll Be Lightning
2009 Champagne In Seashells EP by Liam Finn and Eliza Jane
2010 Barb by Barb (band including Connan Mockasin and EJ)
2011 FOMO
2014 The Nihilist
2018 Lightsleeper by Neil & Liam

lol, so I wasn't wrong that pretty much everything he did was under a different name or with different people.

He also plays and sings and writes (and sometimes produces) on most of Neil's records this century, and is on 20 Crowded House Mk II live albums from 2007 (inc two in Chicago)

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/neil-finn-interview-crowded-house-dreamers-are-waiting-fleetwood-mac-1180529/

I saw him with Crowded House here, because he was in the band at the time. Also opened.

That Rolling Stone interview is actually pretty good for once.

Don't know much about this band beyond the '80s hits - but a song from their last album just came on a mix ("Sweet Tooth"), and I had to check out what was playing, like it immediately caught my ear.

i loved time on earth and especially intriguer. no idea they even put out a new `crowded house` record (and totally missed the discussion here last summer, obviously). gonna check it right now! thanks for the word.

yeah, this is really good! on first listen, i like it at least as much as intriguer and more than time on earth. kind of some wilco-esque vibes throughout, and holy schitt "love isn't hard at all" is pretty solid — damn good stuff.

(also discussion upthread made me put it on and akm otm— "weather with you" is delightfully overproduced)

(note to self: relisten to more old school crwoded house. they fucking jam.)

(crwoded house fucking jams, too. but i meant crowded house. nothing but fucking jams.)

so i'm going to back to intrguer since i didn't realize there was a deluxe edition and this song is amazing. apparently only ever played live?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RU0AgLvmgQI

"the only way to go is forward"

"Don't Dream It's Over" is ageless. I still can't believe a song this taut and wise peaked at #2 in America during the Bon Jovi era.

That '80s pop landscape where Boomers and their kids crossed paths was pretty interesting. As a teenager of course it seemed normal to me because what did I have to compare it to, but the result was a bunch of us grew up with these very mature grown-up songs by mature grown-ups, as part of our adolescent soundtrack. "Don't Dream It's Over" is a prime example. I like plenty of contemporary pop, but apart from maybe Adele I don't feel like that's really part of the atmosphere now.

I’ve thought about that, too – stuff like Graceland, Sting, Tracy Chapman, etc. saturated the pop landscape when I was a kid, and how that kind of “adult”-oriented pop largely disappeared from the mainstream after the ’90s.

(to say nothing of slightly “aging” but top-of-their-game icons like Springsteen, Fogerty, et. al)

The problem was, offal like "Change the World" lingered.

mature grown-up songs by mature grown-ups

Worth noting that Neil Finn wasn't even out of his '20s yet when "Dream" was a hit. He's just a naturally talented great songwriter and has been since he was a kid. Imagine being brother Tim, taking your little brother into you band when he was just 19 or so, and then little bro starts cranking out stuff like "I Got You" and "Message to My Girl." And then gets huge with his own band, which occasionally deigns to include Tim. (Though I will rep for the two Finn Brothers albums, which are great.)

But related to what tipsy said, it's kind of remarkable how much top 40 from the '80s is now considered MOR, music for grownups, when of course it was being made for and purchased by young folks. I mean, MTV Spring Break 1987!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAN14_XejIY

(Though I will rep for the two Finn Brothers albums, which are great.)

co-sign.

This may be of interest:

Well, it’s taken an absolute age to get to this announcement, so come share our joy. The next release on our @needlemythology label will be the FIRST EVER vinyl issue of The Finn Brothers’ dreamy 1995 masterpiece FINN. But that’s barely the start of it… (1/11) pic.twitter.com/VH5CnoY6nI

— Pete Paphides (@petepaphides) May 31, 2022

"Don't Dream It's Over" is ageless. I still can't believe a song this taut and wise peaked at #2 in America during the Bon Jovi era.

Mournful organ lines too.

True, it’s the “Whiter Shade of Pale” of its time.

Chamberlin! And in the case of "Dream," a nod to Bach's "Air on a G String," by way of Procol Harum's "Whiter Shade of Pale."

lol

R.I.P. Gary Brooker

"Pour le Monde", from the late-era album Time On Earth, might be their best Beatles pastiche:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M96Afkkgas4

Heard an interview with Steve Earle decades ago at this point, and he cited Neil Finn as a writer who sounds like the Beatles without sounding *like* the Beatles. Related, there was some dude on Twitter some time ago that was extolling the songwriting prowess of "Neal Finn," and Jason Isbell chimed in with just "First of all, i ..."

And just because:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sije12JaKdA

These guys were, predictably, great last night. What a salve. It's got to be both a blessing and a curse that Neil Finn writes so many great songs. They played a couple of brand new ones, too, one that he joked he wrote the day before, practiced on the bus, and perfected by the time they hit the stage, then muttered "if only it were that fucking easy ..." Yeah, no shit, your fault for making it look easy! Got a couple of deep cuts, got the two best known Split Enz songs, got some quality goofing around, even got a bit of Patrick Hernandez’ 1978 disco track “Born to Be Alive""

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFSWh2jzKeQ

have we solved the controversy over the bridge in "Weather With You"

what's the controversy?