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

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!

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?