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

Do you know why they decided to mix Paul way down in the deluxe edition version? The lead vocal is totally buried.

 

Woodface has a special place in my heart. Waiting for the album to come out, I lost a my mother to cancer, got married, and prepared to move from the only city I'd lived my whole life. One month after it came out, my father died of pneumonia, of course on the very same day that my wife and I had moved to that new town.

Woodface was my friend, my consolation, and my way of seeing the beauty in the world amid possibly the darkest time in my life. Examining each song in detail brought back many sad and a few happy times, but certainly it brought back times when I was able to "escape to a far away land" ... "far from familiar things". I will always be grateful to Neil and Tim for writing the songs that could help to restore my happiness.

Even if there are songs I rate lower than a 5/5, as a whole Woodface merits 5/5.

 

I like it that way. You can hear the other elements better, and I regard the original snippet as the “real” version.

 

This is lovely. Thanks for sharing.

 

To give it the proper feeling, I think we must also all switch computers for that message.

 

Thank you for sharing this. Music can really have a healing power and it's good to know that Woodface helped you through very sad and dark times.

 

Fair enough. But I suppose it's not a definitive full version. On the other hand, we are talking about I'm Still Here.

 

Woodface is my favorite Crowded House album, although a few years ago I might've said Time On Earth or even Intriguer was my favorite. Sometime earlier this year I picked up the vinyl re-issue of Woodface (which sounds fantastic, by the way). It had probably been 10-15 years since I actually sat down and listened to this album all the way through. And yeah, I'd forgotten how incredible this album is. Nearly every song is an absolute classic, IMO. I think that's a sign of a great album, when you don't hear it for a long time and then one day you pop it on and it all comes flooding back and you just fall in love with it all over again. So, anyway, I'd have to say that Woodface is a f***ing masterpiece. 5/5

 

Obviously, what happened wasn’t lovely. How the music helped you is. I hope that was clear.

 

After seeing so many references to it in this thread I'm checking out the Chris Bourke book -- and he has "She Goes On" on this tracklist in between "Sacred Cow" and "Fields." The Woodface credits also indicate this song was recorded alongside the other Neil Finn solo compositions.

 

Thank you! I have the book too But instead of checking there I just have been Googling “ woodface original tracklist frenz.com” and it takes me to a link with the tracklist I keep putting up.

So that means my speculation that it was recorded in LA is probably correct: it just sounds like LA. I wonder if Tim’s vocal was recorded during the original sessions, when he was “hanging out with the band” so that means my speculation that it was recorded in LA is probably correct: it just sounds like LA. I wonder if Tim’s vocal was recorded during the original sessions Or if it was overdubbed later after he joined in the final batch of overdubs sessions in LA.

Yikes, , following “she goes on” with “fields are full of your kind “is a real buzz kill.

 

Exactly. That was the intention.

Sorry for jumping to “I’m Still Here” a day early. I thought I was a day late!

I’ll get me coat...

Taxi!!

 

Yeah as far as Tim’s vocals I think that’s hard to say... as you’ve discussed they did overdubs to integrate the two projects. But the credits say the song was originally recorded at A&M in LA.

 

I think that Woodface is a great album, with just so many great songs on it. For me, it's more a collection of songs rather than an album that fits together as a perfect whole, but some of those songs are just fantastic.

BTW: I like the 'I'm Still Here' reprise a lot. Works fine to end up the album, like 'Her Majesty' on Abbey Road. EDIT: We shouldn't be discussing 'I'm Still Here' yet?

After the debut album, Temple of Low Men seems a bit of a detour for me. It's a great and interesting album, but very different from the debut which was more a collection of songs. Woodface for me is much more what I expected as a follow-up to the debut.

CH's career for me is associated with my living in Japan. I hadn't bought the debut album until I arrived in Japan in 1987. I remember seeing all the displays in record shops for ToLM. And, I bought Woodface in the airport as I was leaving the country. I didn't have a working CD player on me, so could only look at it until I arrived in New Zealand.

4.8/5

I missed How Will You Go. I won't rate it, but for me it's another very good song, that is perhaps overshadowed by some of the truly great songs around it. But, as the not-quite finish for the album, it works very well.

 

Yes, I come to the same conclusion whenever I feel like I can't understand the inclusion of the Finn Brothers songs "Tall Trees", "All I Ask" and even "Chocolate Cake" instead of some of Neil's original songs such as "Anyone Can Tell", Dr Livingstone" or "Sacred Cow".

Given that it seems Neil had already persuaded Tim to let him have "Four Seasons In One Day" (it's in the original album tracklist) personally I would have only added "It's Only Natural", "Weather With You" and possibly "There Goes God".

Rating the album as a whole is difficult because, although the collection of songs is worthy of a 5/5, the album is clearly a hybrid of the different writing styles and the brothers' harmonies verses Neil's solo lead singing, and therefore does not hang together coherently. It sounds more like a greatest hits collection or a personal mix tape. So reluctantly I'm giving it a harsh 4/5.

 

Woodface seems to be the one universally acknowledged masterpiece in the Finns' collective catalog of releases. As much as I think a few other albums (Time and Tide, Temple of Low Men, Together Alone, Try Whistling This, Time on Earth - basically any album that starts with a "T") in their oeuvre are also worthy of the label (perhaps qualified with a prefatory "near-"), I would agree that Woodface is just that small cut above all of these other works. Perhaps it comes down to the peerless harmonies of Neil and Tim, coupled with the playing of Nick and Paul and the superb production and sonics achieved by Mitchell Froom, Tchad Blake, and Bob Clearmountain. This combination of talent was only ever in play for this one album. Together Alone, for example, suffers to a small degree from the absence of Tim's harmonies and suffers greatly from the loss of the Froom/Clearmountain team, replacing their rich, crystalline sonics with a muffled, muddy, bass-heavy sludge courtesy of "producer" Youth (worst mistake CH Mk. I ever made, in my estimation). The songs themselves are, with a couple of exceptions, the equal of those on Woodface. There's just something about Woodface that sets it apart and places it on the highest shelf of Finn-related releases, all by itself. It's certainly one of my favorite albums of all time by any artist and, frankly, I can't imagine the degree to which my life would have been made poorer by its absence.

5/5

 

Amen.

 

It has some of their best songs, but it's not their best album IMO - it's a bit long, and feels like a compilation. Neil Finn said "I'm very fond of Woodface...but it's about two songs too long". ' In Love With It All', which later turned up on Tim Finn's Before and After would have been a good fit.

 

I think Woodface must be considered the group's best album even if it is not necessarily my favourite. The standard of songwriting here was pretty formidable and at least half of the tracks are classic tunes.

I can understand some people saying that it's too long - and cutting one or two songs might have made it more consistent - but I never felt that way when I listened to it way back when. It was an album that I could mostly enjoy from start to finish.

4.5/5.

 

I want to hear "Ugly Sheila." Is that at all possible?

 

This thread is going to finish??

Woodface, to me, is a 4.5/5

 

[QUOTE="robcar, There's just something about Woodface that sets it apart and places it on the highest shelf of Finn-related releases, all by itself. It's certainly one of my favorite albums of all time by any artist and, frankly, I can't imagine the degree to which my life would have been made poorer by its absence. QUOTE]

You took the words out of my mouth, robcar!

Woodface is my favorite Finn related album. I love just about everything Neil and Tim have ever done. But this album is on another level. It’s perfect. One of my “desert island discs”.

I’ve read quite a bit in this thread about the record being more like a collection of songs, rather than a singular cohesive album. Frankly those comments surprised me.

I wasn’t in the Enz/CH fan club at the time, so I had no idea that Woodface was the product of songs from two different projects. To my ears at the time (and still today) I hear it as a completely cohesive album, absolutely loaded with fantastic songs. I worked in the music business at the time, and received 2 promo cassettes of the album, about two months ahead of the release date. I kept one cassette in the car and the other at home. I must have played the album at least a few dozen times before it was available in stores.

I loved Woodface from first listen. I was SO excited that Tim was in the band. It seemed only natural (bad pun intended!) for him to be in CH. His backing vocals on TOLM took the album to a higher level. Neil was on Tim’s self titled album. Woodface seemed like a natural progression. And the songwriting partnership really brought out the best in the brothers.

I think that a 3rd CH album without the Finn Brothers songs would have been the end of the band. Nick had already been fired, and Paul was on thin ice. An album with the proposed song titles we’ve seen would have been a bit of a hard sell. “Fall At Your Feet” is an undisputed classic. And there are some other good to great songs among the other tracks. But would the record label have even released an album without the Finn Brothers songs? And what if a 3rd CH album had bombed, while a Finn Brothers record had been a hit? History may have been very different!

Needless to say, Woodface is a 5 out of 5.

 

As much as I love Mitchell Froom et al, I feel they made the right decision in moving on. If Woodface has one fault, it's the slightly too slick and clean production and mixing. Of course, Froom also got dirtier with his work too. In fact, he was an innovator in adding purposefully lofi elements to his later productions (Latin Playboys, Los Lobos) , so something was in the air. This is now commonplace but Mitchell and Tchad Blake were way ahead of the curve. You can hear a few hints of this on Woodface (Fall At Your Feet bridge Tim vocal comes to mind). Unfortunately, as the production became more raw, mastering trends made it harder to enjoy it (Everyone Is Here).

I'll give 4.75/5 as an album. It's not a perfect album but so many great songs. Thanks to this thread for reminding me!

 

I had made up my mind to see Crowded House on the "Woodface" tour as I had never gone to see the Enz or Crowded House before. Shortly after the release of "Woodface" a co-worker causally mentioned to me that Crowded House was playing in our city that night. I was completely confused because I had been keeping a close eye on any announcement that a show was coming my way and had not heard a single thing. My co-worker told me knew someone who worked in the music industry who was going to see them that night. He also had no clue what venue this gig was to be played in! I asked all of my music buddies and none of them had heard of any show. It was quite frustrating knowing they were in town but not knowing where! The very next day (after the show of course) my co-worker had the info. It had been a promotional club gig not open to the public. My co-worker was given a Woodface window sticker by his friend who went to the gig, which he stuck in the rear window of his car. Months went by and finally a real show was booked in my city but Tim had left by then. I loved the show and secretly recorded it on my cassette player from the balcony.

 

I had one of those stickers! No idea where it is now, but this makes me want to go find it.

I'd completely forgotten...