Stranger than Fiction, Larger Than Life: the Finn Brothers song-by-song discussion thread

Following the intensity of "Need To Be Right", the melody of "Twinkle" has a calming feel. It is a very well-written song and it's another one that is seemingly quite "simple" and straight-forward yet keeps revealing more layers and nuances the more I hear it. I like it a lot.
4,4/5

 

“Twinkle” has potential to be a Tim Finn minor classic, but too much is off: the sound effects, the poorly sung middle eight, the lack in dynamic throughout the song and the female harmony vocal. I kind of get why this was a single, but nevertheless, not Hypertension’s best choice. I held the actual CD-single in my hands once at a record fair when it was a fairly recent release, but didn’t buy it, and never saw one again. A copy is on it’s way to me from Berlin as we speak.

3.4 / 5

 

I have it but I ordered it from Wisconsin and the shipping costs were 30$. They did send me Back on the Bus and Far Out as a surprise though.

 

Sorry, but the lyrics to this one are incredibly wet and would have been more suited to a boyband.

It doesn't help that whenever I hear the word "Twinkle", I think of a pop psychologist in Frasier: "You don't have to be a star to twinkle."

It might have been more suitable for another (probably younger) singer.

2.5/5.

 

Twinkle is another very good pop song nearly ruined by some of the production choices. I like the melody, really like the guitar sounds, really, really like Tim's vocal, don't mind the lyrics, but the song would have been much better without the rhythmic glooping, which remind me of the rhythmic distortion that ruined this record's version of Roadtrip. They probably came from the same synthesizer or program, just with a different tonal setting.

4/5, but it so easily could have been a 5/5

 

My posts are getting so sporadic here. Busy days. Twinkle is the highlight of this album for me. On the surface it’s a cheerful love song but there are these dark moments creeping in. There are outside forces threatening the relationship and the speaker seems aware of them. The first line is about pollution and almost suggests urban decay. The final section brings in a sense of desperation to the music with some well-placed vocal distortion and a greater emphasis on minor chords. Those final repetitions of the chorus melody on piano feel subtly tragic. And that just makes you want to go back and relive the cheerful heart of the song. 5/5

 

"Twinkle" is a good one. The electronic bleeps remind me a bit of David Gray's White Ladder album, which came out around the same time. This is a very good pop rock song and I can see why it was seen as a single in some places. The lyrics don't do a ton for me but they are perfectly serviceable for the emotion the song is conveying.

Still, strong song.

4.1/5

 

Some news from Mushroom Group... the April 25 online festival Music From The Home Front, which featured Crowded House, will be issued as an album on double CD and triple LP coloured vinyl as well as on iTunes, GooglePlay etc. The album will include Crowded House performing "Don't Dream It's Over" plus a lot of other great Australian artists. The release date is June 19 and all profits will be donated to Support Act in Australia and MusicHelpsLive in New Zealand in the fight against Covid-19. More information about this album here:

2CD edition: Various Artists - Music From The Home Front 2CD - Music From The Homefront
3LP coloured vinyl edition: Various Artists - Music From The Home Front 3LP (Colored Vinyl) - Music From The Homefront
Bundle with 2CD and t-shirt: Various Artists - Music From The Home Front 2CD And Tshirt Bundle Pack - Music From The Homefront

 

I like Twinkle - there's not much to dislike - but, yes, the lyric is a little twee. 3/5.

 

Our votes for "Twinkle"

1-0
2-0
3-4
4-6
5-4
Average: 3.9357

 

Today's song is "Big Wave Rider", written by Tim Finn and produced by Jay Joyce.

Spotify: Big Wave Rider

• Tim Finn - vocals, piano, acoustic guitar
• Jay Joyce - guitars, keyboards, sounds
• Bruce Bouton pedal steel
• Chris Feinstein - bass
• Ken Coomer - drums

By the way all of these videos were released in low rez on the American CD release of Feeding the Gods. Some guy has toiled to make them watchable on YouTube.

 

Some slightly inaccurate lyrics HERE.

 

Interesting video. The song is one of the better ones on the album, and I like the slightly off-kilter chorus matched with a more normal verse. That's the sort of thing that Split Enz used to do well.

3.6/5

 

Catching up here after a couple days away - living right on the Minneapolis border, I think it's safe to say I've been a little distracted the last little while.
It's eerie - we've been totally untouched by everything that's going on thus far, but we're close enough that you can see the smoke/fire from a good vantage point and can hear the helicopters and what have you; even have friends who've either left their homes or had active plans/arrangements because they were so close to the action.
We happen to be on the northern border of the city, only a couple miles away from downtown, and right on the north/south thoroughfare through the area, and just across the Mississippi River from another area that's a bit of powder keg. If the activity had ever moved north or east we'd have been right in the path, but nothing here so far. Feeling very fortunate about that.

Need To Be Right:
The album track is what it is, but the piano ballad version is SO good compared to it that I can't even rate the one that's up for rating here.

Twinkle:
It's cute and inoffensive but there's nothing distinctive about it - thought it has potential that wasn't realized in the recording, so I'll give it a little bump for that.
3.5/5

Big Wave Rider:
I generally don't like fuzzy vocals and find them irritating. I almost gave up on "Exquisite Stereo" for this very reason but only appreciate them in that one because they're needed for the stark contrast. This is not the case here. Which is a shame because I *want* to like this more than I do - it has such a cool groove.
2.5/5

 

"Big Wave Rider" is another excellent track, once again nice use of samples/effects/drum loops. This one also seems to have an experimental edge to it that is very appealing to me and I really like the various effects used on Tim's vocals here, very unique, interesting and just frikkin' cool.
5/5

 

"Big Wave Rider" is a good song that I think would have benefitted from better production. It sounds muffled and the way Tim's voice is treated with vocal effects is distracting. A song like this cries out for Mitchell Froom's touch. I still like it but I think it could have been much better.

3.7/5

 

WEird is what I like, which of course is exactly why I like it; the backing track of the verses is like nothing I've really heard before, the percussion sound and samples are so smooshed tight; and the chorus is so loud that even in a compressed job like this album is, it sticks out: and it comes and goes so fast; I find it quite funny and I can remember literally laughing out loud back in the day. Back when there was still joy in my life before it had become the pitted barren miserable joyless wasteland that is today. Back when laughing out loud was only possible literally. Oh, sorry, I'm digressing.

I like the way that these loud sections seem just kind of shoved in there: I just dig modular recordings like this (see also "Exquisite Stereo" and "Shiver" from this album). I mean, as a song of course, it's really not much, a repetitive, R&B-like verse and a LOUD post-grunge chorus: as a track though it's a lot of crazy fun. I really like the noisy bit in the middle . I was wondering what the lyric is about. It seems almost mythological, but then the last verse "She made me feel it in my blood/responsibility of love" makes me feel like it's just another love song.

Anyway, yeah, screw it: 4.5/5

 

And all this time I thought you were in San Francisco! My in-laws are north of Anoka so I know the area you live in, at least generally. I live about a mile from the CO state capitol, so it has been a noisy few nights for us as well - although not quite the same as where you are.

 

I thought you lived in San Francisco.

 

I had a look at the rating I gave BWR in iTunes. It scored 1/5. The only other things I can think of that get that score are the Lennon/Ono avant garde nonsense and a couple of unlistenable Tori Amos tracks. I guess that the best I can say about it is that it's pretty unique in my collection.

 

Big Wave Rider - a big jumble of ideas that never gels. I like the sound of the 5 (?) second long chorus a lot. But nothing else ever connects with me. There is just way too much going on.

2/5

 

I don't just dislike "Big Wave Rider" it literally offends my ear drums with its.....well, with everything about it. I find it the complete opposite of melodic - discordant, jarring - and Tim's voice just seems to drone on tunelessly underneath the irritatingly dominant music. Urgh.

1/5

 

Nailed exactly what I love about it and why it is so great!

 

If only... I grew up in they Bay Area but left at exactly the wrong time - now will probably never be able to afford a return (at least not without compromising quality of life).
"Somewhere in San Francisco on a Back Porch in July" is a line from "Standing on the Moon" by Grateful Dead -- one of my favorite lines from a song ever.

I'm right off Central just south of 694 - if you or your other half know where that is - you know that if they'd marched north the other night I could EASILY have been in the thick of it all. Northeast is one of the areas they were most concerned about getting lit up, but we've been so, so lucky.

What's really weird is watching how nasty things are getting everywhere else while it seems to finally be calming down a bit here (we'll see).

 

"Big Wave Rider" always makes me smile. Just when you are starting to have a good idea what this album is like, along comes this song with samples and loops blended with acoustic guitars, fuzzy vocals in the verses and a very catchy chorus. Throw in some off-kilter flute-ish sound at the end as well. This is weird in a very good way. And lyrics about surfers - or are they metaphors for a love relationship - which is an unusual theme in a Tim song. The contrasts musically between the verse and the chorus give me an idea about how surfers might experience big waves appearing. In Mike Chunn's book about Split Enz it mentions how Tim, in their boarding school days in their teens, had a phase when he was very fascinated by surfing and its culture so maybe it's an interest that has come back to him.
In any case, even though I suspect the actual song beneath its production wouldn't amount to all that much if it was just vocals and acoustic guitar, I really really like this oddly sounding track.
5/5