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

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.)