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

Today, we'll rate and discuss the album Together Alone.

 

Together Alone has been one of my favorite albums since about 1996. I can think of few albums that have moved me as much while also providing candy for my ears. I feel like for an album with such weighty lyrical themes and such a dark murky atmosphere listening to this should not be so much fun. Yet it absolutely is. The details of the album are stunning and I for one am a big fan of the sound and the mix on all the songs. (Though they went too conservative with "Distant Sun.") It is murky, but it's also to my ears the most colorful of all the bands albums; and the occasional lack of clarity makes for a bigger emotional wallop. They'd never really go so Phil Spector on an album again.

"Skin Feeling" sticks out on the album a bit and I can well understand why someone would create a 12-song playlist that cuts it out -- the album is, after all pretty long, as was Woodface.

Yet for me, Together Alone doesn't feel nearly as long as Woodface did. During the discussion of Woodface a couple of months ago, I noticed a good deal of the posters saying things like "wow, we're only 9 songs into the album -- there's still an incredible five more songs to go!" I noticed that this didn't happen. For whatever reason, this conversation seemed to go much faster to me than Woodface. I believe the hodgepodge quality of Woodface, (50% three-piece-with-Froom, 25 percent Finn Brothers-with-Paul- 20% Finn Brothers-with-Ricky Fataar-and-Mark Hart and 5% 4-piece band) makes it seem longer than it is. While the consistency in sound makes Together Alone seem shorter than it is to me.

It transports me to another place and another time -- this is very much a 90s album and drenched in the values of that time. And yet it is it's own unique self, sounding like no other record. Rarely has an album so self-consciously attempted to drape itself in the sounds of the culture and geographical location where it was recorded: when albums do that, they tend to be roots rock albums (like Rattle and Hum). The fact that this one was recorded in New Zealand makes it fresh: these were and to some extent still are new sounds for the world at large. It's exotic and yet...it doesn't belabor its point too much. It all goes to serve the songs.

This is the album where Neil's impressionistic style reached it's full fruition...in years to come he would go back to writing more directly and emotionally, as he had during Split Enz; and it's also the album, perhaps the only album other than Intriguer where the band was allowed to fire all its cylinders and develop the songs organically rather than under the watchful eye of a master arranger/producer like Mitchell Froom. I know that the band have grumbled about Youth's production and how little he did to deserve his credit -- but that was the point of the project. He just created an atmosphere for the band to make their music and the results speak for themselves. With no one in charge, Neil took charge and utilized the ideas and playing of the others. A songwriting giant Neil is, and a great guitarist and all-rounder musician, but this music is the sound of a highly creative band at the top of their game.

We've been following Neil's songs since The discussion of The Rootin' Tootin' Luton Tapes last year. I think that this is his peak; though he'd always been great and pretty much would remain great up to today, this, at about 15 years into his professional career, was his highest point.



5/5

 

A wonderful read @Lance LaSalle , bravo.

 

I bought the Together Alone CD the day it came out in NZ, having already heard "Distant Sun" and its studio B-Side, the delightful "Walking On The Spot". The day was grey and moody and I lived on the edge of a nature reserve, so the setting was perfect for my first play of the album. To this day, I think of that room and the green bush/stormy sky view when I hear anything from Together Alone. A magical mix of sounds, moods, words and tunes that so perfectly captured the environment it was made in and that I identified with.

Could I have imagined that 23 years later, I'd be watching Crowded House play "Fingers Of Love" on the Sydney Opera House forecourt as boats went by in the harbour... (37 secs into this video.)

 

This album is definitely the peak of Neil’s career in every way.

I don’t remember exactly the first time I heard it, but it was years after it was released, in late 2002, and it has remained my favorite work of recorded music by anyone, even 17 years later

The thing is, when an artist releases an album that so profoundly moves you, you want it to happen again, and of course, sadly, that can never happen.

5/5

 

It's lovely to read your thoughts, @brownie. We've hung out in the same fora for a number of years but the quietness of those worlds has meant we've rarely talked. It's been a pleasure sharing thoughts/feelings again.

 

I think the songwriting is a step down from Woodface, as you would probably expect with Tim being less involved, but the production is probably a step up. Although I think it's been said that Neil didn't always enjoy working with him, Youth's production adds a huge amount of atmosphere to almost all of the songs. Some of the songs would sound pretty average otherwise.

Distant Sun, Private Universe and Catherine Wheels are probably the highlights, but there are several other solid tunes.

Walking on the Spot should have been omitted imho as 12 songs would have been ample.

4/5.

 

Thanks Paul. I feel the same.

This thread is an oasis of civil, substantial Finn discussion in the vast noise of the internet.

 

This album is my favourite in my whole collection and that includes classics like The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Pink Floyd, and 80s favourites like Tears For Fears, Talk Talk et al and more recent brilliance like Radiohead.

I think it’s better than all of those. For me, it’s the greatest album ever made. But that’s just my opinion.

It has light. It has shade. It even has darkness. It has ups. It has downs. It has layers. Many layers. It can keep giving more and more of itself. It’s there whenever I need it and it never fails to thrill me. To move me. To make me smile. To wow me. To amaze me.

That these guys went to a remote place at end of the world and made an album even better than Woodface just astounds me. They were truly at their peak. Kudos to Neil for hiring Youth. It wouldn’t have been the same without him.

I was gutted that they broke up in ‘96; I was so looking forward to what would come next. I was delighted at their reunion but ultimately disappointed in those albums but I still have Together Alone (5 copies. 1 original cd. 1 deluxe edition. 1 original vinyl. 2 remastered vinyl) and for that I will be forever grateful. I don’t really have the words to do it justice. Sorry.

I lament the fact that it hasn’t sold 30 million. More people need to hear it.

5/5

 

A shout to Bob Clearmountain's mix of this album, too which manages to include all these elements without sounding cluttered or fussy. Just as his (totally different) mix made Woodface sound almost like one cohesive project. I think everything Neil does should be mixed by Bob Clearmountain.

 

I remember the excitement of going to a record store on October 11, 1993, the day of release for Together Alone in Europe. I had had a full day of lectures at uni, it was an intense part of the semester with big exams coming up, when I walked out of the lecture hall at 5 p.m. it was dark, cold, rainy and windy. And there the new album was in the record store. For the first few weeks, I barely listened to any other music and I would usually listen to the new album in headphones late at night. It took a few listens, as it always does with new Finn music, before the album really started growing, but once it did there was no stopping it from becoming my all-time favourite album.
The whole album feels like a complete piece, a magnificent musical journey that really evokes a sense of taking me as a listener to the world of Karekare, the way I imagine the place to be, with rugged, dramatic landscape, big cities far away, the forces of nature keenly felt on any given day. Together Alone captures my imagination like no other album, it's so epic, cinematic, moving, haunting and full of atmosphere. You can really sense that both Neil as a songwriter and the band as a whole pushed themselves during the recording of the album, they didn't want to play it safe and make Woodface 2 (just like they pushed themselves artistically when working on Temple of Low Men). It really sounds that they didn't worry about whether the songs were radio-friendly or not, they wanted to get the songs their way and follow their vision all the way. I think that's admirable and the album has stood the test of time. More than 25 years later, it still sounds like no other album. It's so timeless and even now I can discover little details or nuances that I hadn't noticed or thought of before.

The sequencing of the album is just perfect, in my opinion, I don't want anything changed about the track order. As good as the B-sides of the era are, I don't think they would have fitted in that well on the album, but they are certainly high quality tracks in their own right.
When I listen to this album in its entirety I usually need a few minutes of silence after it, just to let all its complex emotions, lyrically and musically, to sink in. It's the same way with movies - some movies are just two hours of good escapism and that's fine, and with other movies you remain seated while the credits roll and stay there for a while, and such movies can remain in your thoughts for a long time afterwards. This album is like such a movie and in my opinion it's the best album by anyone, ever.

I also associate this album with the Crowded House mailing list, which I believe started in 1992 and which I joined in September 1993, when Internet and emails were quite new. It was a great time to join that mailing list, just before Crowded House's magnum opus was to be released and when an extensive world tour was about to start. It was a very active mailing list, with several messages each day and usually at least one mailing list member attended any given CH concert, or could report of TV or radio interviews, post articles and reviews from their local paper and so on. And of course there was a lot of in-depth discussion about Together Alone (and the unfortunate situation of it being released in most of the world in October 1993 but not in North America until January 1994). With so much reports about all the band's activities, it felt almost like being at their every concert. And I remember one mailing list member posting in February 1994 that he had heard from a source that one band member was unhappy and was thinking about leaving the band. The mailing list member didn't reveal his source and didn't know himself which band member it referred to, but it had been reported previously on the mailing list that Paul had left the promo tour in Europe in October 1993 and it had been noted that he didn't appear in the "Nails In My Feet" video clip either, so all signs pointed towards him. The reports from the concerts in the States in March 1994 also described Paul as being erratic in concert and in TV/radio interviews - sometimes very happy, sometimes seemingly grumpy and aloof - so when the news was eventually posted on the mailing list right after the Atlanta concert on April 14, 1994 that he had quit the band with immediate effect, it didn't come as a bolt out of the blue (but still very sad of course).

I did see the band in concert towards the end of the Together Alone tour, in Stockholm on June 16, 1994, with Peter Jones on drums. A great concert, which surprisingly featured nothing from the first album, more focus on "deep cuts" from the other three albums and an unexpected cover of the song "Counting The Beat" by Phil Judd's post-Enz group The Swingers. I wrote a report for the mailing list of that concert and surprisingly, some time later, none other than Peter Jones himself sent me an email, saying that he had read it and enjoyed it very much, so that was a nice ego boost. (He was in fact living in Stockholm with his Swedish girlfriend at the time, but I've never met him in real life).

More than anything though, the best thing about this mailing list was to be part of the great community of Finn fans and becoming friends with great people like Ed (@jimbutsu) and Ross (@HitAndRun) who I've re-connected with here on this forum. Both the mailing list then and this forum now prove what a wonderful bunch of persons Crowded House fans are. It's so amazing that this forum now consists of 244 pages of devoted and insightful discussion about the Finn Brothers' music and that there hasn't been any "flame wars"! Truly the mark of the best possible fans!

Together Alone the album easily gets 5/5 from me but really should have an even higher score...

 

Great stuff Stefan.

 

Overall the album doesn't reach the heights of the previous three, but it still should be a solid 4.

 

This is a hard album for me to rate, so many great songs, yet it just doesn't seem as incredibly fantastic as Woodface (or a Neil solo album that's my favorite). Like others, I love the overall sound of the album, I have no problem with creative use of reverb and other effects (what some might describe as murky) but I have to admit I am a little burned out on a few tracks like Distant Sun & Private Universe, even though they are really classic CH songs.
4.5/5

 

Speaking of Paul's leaving, I was talking to some woman in a bar back in Denver circa 2002 or so and she told me she had actually met Crowded House in North Carolina. Or South Carolina: one of the Carolina's. Or someplace in the South, could have been Virginia, all those states kind of look the same to me, you know

Anyway, She was working at a radio station and they came in for an interview. She wasn't a huge fan but she wasn't completely clueless either.

I asked her what they were like and she said that she told them she'd never met anybody from New Zealand before and Paul started shouting at her that only Neil was from New Zealand....Called her names. Just a really unhappy person. (I think she didn't know his name when she told me, she called him "the drummer.")

Later, in the parking lot of the station her car wouldn't start and Neil actually helped her start the car, even went under the hood (bonnet) with Mark and Nick kind of advising him while Paul just glowered in the background smoking a cigarette. Given the geography it was probably only a few days before Paul left the band.

 

Together Alone is easily my favourite Neil Finn project - he's done lots of great stuff, but the unfettered nature of the Together Alone works for him. A lot of his stuff feels a bit uptight, Together Alone doesn't.

I made a list of my five favourite album involving Neil Finn last year - Neil Finn’s Five Best Albums topped the list.

 

This is my favourite Finn-related album and one of my favourites by anyone, but for all its brilliance I would still make a few changes to the track list and substitute the following:

"I Am In Love" in place of "Black And White Boy"
"You Can Touch" in place of "Skin Feeling"

and possibly "Convent Girls" in place of "Walking On The Spot" although I'm less sure about that swap because I really like "Walking On The Spot" but it sounds a bit out of its time and missing the rich atmospheric production sounds of the rest of the album.

Thanks to everyone's insightful comments giving me new perspectives on the songs and adding to my enjoyment of the album, which I didn't think would be possible as I loved it so much already.

5/5

 

I was living in San Jose, CA when this came out. My goto radio station at the time was KSCU (Santa Clara University) and one DJ in particular who went by the handle "Red" always played great new stuff. She put on "In My Command" and I immediately went out and bought the CD. As fate would have it, my best friend was in the music marketing industry at the time and the annual NARM convention was in San Francisco that year and he let me tag along. CH did several appearances in the area, both at NARM and an in-store at a record shop downtown SF. The music was fantastic, no filler for me. As a bonus I got to meet them and got a selfie (before we used phones for that) with Nick Seymour. Nothing but great memories for that era and album. It still gets serious play in my car. 5/5

 

Great list I enjoyed reading that and I think I agree.

 

Together Alone was my first CH purchase, at age 14, after seeing the Private Universe video. I had taken notice of Chocolate Cake 3 years prior but was a kid with no money. I liked Distant Sun and Locked Out but the 3rd single clinched it and I spent my slave wage (paper boy) and bought the album new. I believe this led to me getting the other albums from the library. Anyway, initially I loved about 2 thirds. But there was something special here, even the artwork is really evocative and matches the music perfectly. The amazing thing is I would forget about this album from time to time and then come back to it years later and find that another song had revealed itself to me. Nails In My Feet is one of my favs but I didn’t much care for it for the first 15 years of owning the record.

Then the final clincher was 10 years ago when I bought a vaporizer and started enjoying the odd puff now and then. That changed how I listened to music and I really started appreciating atmosphere. Before then, I was much more about melody and production hooks. It’s funny, considering their image but this album is a stoner record. I can now say that Together Alone is one of my favourite albums but it’s been a long journey!

 

Does anyone know where the title came from? It’s a bit ‘Definitely Maybe’ isn’t it?

 

Well, I reckon they got it from the song! It predates Definitely Maybe by almost a year.

But in light of the fact that they broke up afterwards (though not officially), you have to wonder if titling the album was some sort of subconscious comment on the state of the band.

 

This album wasn’t available in America for months after it’s release in Europe and other parts of the world. As a huge fan it was a long wait, and I was in a new job and a new part of the country and didn’t know hardly anybody when I finally got my hands on it. I became huge acolyte and tried to convert everyone I met to buying this album. It also became the soundtrack to a very intense relationship/engagement so it has an extra layer of meaning for me. I put it up there with only three others at the top of my greatest albums list: “Abbey Road”, “A Hard Day’s Night”, “Darkness on the Edge of Town”; all four albums changed my life for the better and are wellsprings of inspiration and solace I can always return to.
5+/5

 

I don't know where the title came from (other than the song), but back in the mailing list days of 1993, now-forum member @HitAndRun pointed out that in the booklet of the original CD, we see photos of Mark, Nick and Neil (together), Mark (alone), on the next page Neil, Paul and Nick (together) and Neil (alone), then Mark and Nick (together) and Paul (alone) and finally the whole band (together) and Paul (alone).

(Paul does look really unhappy in every picture, so sad to see that now)

 

Together Alone is an excellent album. The high points on the album are some of Neil’s best songs. However, I find “Locked Out” particularly weak. “Skin Feeling” is my least favorite CH song from the original band by a mile. And I could do without both “Pineapple Head” and “Walking On The Spot”. They are good songs, but not as good as anything on Woodface to my ears. I rate the album 4/5.

Something I can add to the conversation is that Capitol didn’t have high hopes for the record in America. The contacts I had at the label during this time told me as much. It seemed clear that if the big machine of Capitol Records couldn’t make Woodface a hit in this country that they couldn’t do it with TA. They promoted Woodface in a big way. Retailers received promo cassettes to play in store a few months before the album hit the shelves. Capitol produced a cool promo only version of the CD (seen here: Crowded House - Woodface ). They sent record stores 2 different posters (one a group shot, the other the album cover) and very cool die cut album sized flats of the cover). They mailed the posters out in huge quantities. And they sent us the wonderful Live At The Town & Country 2 CD set. Capitol didn’t promote TA nearly as much. They were stingier with promotional posters. Didn’t create a special cassette or CD as promos for retailers. And most tellingly, they didn’t create anything approaching the same kind of buzz and excitement that they had with Woodface. TA seemed just like another album that Capitol released. I’m sure the change in the regime at the label had a lot (everything?) to do with it.