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

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.