{"id":22496,"date":"2022-03-04T05:30:14","date_gmt":"2022-03-04T10:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=22496"},"modified":"2022-03-04T13:36:44","modified_gmt":"2022-03-04T18:36:44","slug":"march-through-time-crowded-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/03\/04\/march-through-time-crowded-house\/","title":{"rendered":"March Through Time: Crowded House"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>This month, I&#8217;m hitting<\/em> pause <em>on coverage of new artists and releases, focusing instead for a bit on the bodies of work from some of my favorite artists. &#8212; bk<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\" align=\"left\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-22497\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/mtt_crowded.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/mtt_crowded.jpg 500w, https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/mtt_crowded-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/mtt_crowded-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>One of the most popular bands in the world somehow missed catching on in the United states. The failure of Crowded House to become as big here as, say, Radiohead or The Police will remain one of life\u2019s great mysteries. One cannot go wrong with any of their albums, but some are more perfect than others. Here\u2019s my take.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p class=\"western\" align=\"left\"><i><b>Crowded House<\/b><\/i><b> (1986)<\/b> \u2013 An auspicious debut. Some found the production a bit thin; I did not, and simply love this record. Neil Finn was brilliant in Split Enz, and his trio (plus Enz keyboardist Eddie Rayner) made a classic.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"western\" align=\"left\"><i><b>Temple of Low Men<\/b><\/i><b> (1988) <\/b>\u2013 Stunningly, Crowded House\u2019s second album is even better than its first. Moody and difficult, the songs are better, the production is better, and everything is more emotionally visceral. This album is among my personal Top Ten.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"western\" align=\"left\"><i><b>Woodface<\/b><\/i><b> (1991)<\/b> \u2013 A very different record, thanks in large part to the participation of brother Tim Finn. A happier-feeling collection, for unknown reasons it didn\u2019t do well in the U.S. But it carries on with Crowded House\u2019s unbroken string of classic records.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"western\" align=\"left\"><i><b>Together Alone <\/b><\/i><b>(1993)<\/b> \u2013 Harder-edged and moodier again; Tim is gone, replaced by Mark Hart. Some of the lovely melodic approach seems to be set aside in favor of a more rocking character. It\u2019s a dense record. Perhaps not a classic but well worth owning.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"western\" align=\"left\"><i><b>Time on Earth<\/b><\/i><b> (2007)<\/b> \u2013 After years without Crowded House, fans welcomed them back with this one. Paul Hester had left the Earth, and his shadow hangs over this record. But it\u2019s beautiful in its own ways.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"western\" align=\"left\"><i><b>Intriguer<\/b><\/i><b> (2010)<\/b> \u2013 by this late in the game, the die had long since been cast: near-universal critical acclaim, commercial under-performance (except in Australia).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"western\" align=\"left\"><i><b>Dreamers Are Waiting<\/b><\/i> <b>(2021)<\/b> \u2013 One could consider this the Neil Finn Family Band, as it features sons Liam and Elroy as full members and sometime co-writers. Stalwart bassist Nick Seymour is still on board, and Mitch Froom returns, this time as a band member. All those ingredients \u2013 and Neil\u2019s insistence on not repeating himself \u2013 mean that the band\u2019s first studio album in more than a decade (and second in 28 years!) doesn\u2019t always <i>sound<\/i> like the Crowdies of old. But it\u2019s still head and shoulders above what most others are doing. And it beats the hell out of Neil\u2019s <i>other<\/i> band, Fleetwood Mac.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"western\" align=\"left\">I\u2019ll cover Split Enz in a separate entry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This month, I&#8217;m hitting pause on coverage of new artists and releases, focusing instead for a bit on the bodies of work from some of my favorite artists. &#8212; bk [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22497,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,65],"tags":[595],"class_list":["post-22496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","category-review","tag-crowded-house","cat-27-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22496"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22664,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22496\/revisions\/22664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}