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

I agree that the mastering of this album is not that good, but unless sound quality and performance is extremely poor, it's mainly the song-writing that hooks me into an album. And, the overall songwriting quality for this album is among the best Tim albums. Previously 'Tim Finn' has been my favourite Tim album, but now I'm not sure.

Tim's voice was, in context, surprising to me. (Yes, there were some releases with Tim's 'new voice' before then but I hadn't listened to them much.) This led to me playing the album less than it deserved when it was released. Now I've had the chance to catch up on the album, I do think that overall it is very good.

4.2/5

Note that this is a higher number than the average of my ratings of the songs would suggest. I think the album's songs work well together and that the total is more than the sum of the parts.

 

Well, I've already mentioned the fact that this was the first solo Tim Finn album that I actually liked all the way through. I've always had major quibbles with earlier albums:

• Escapade -- pleasant summer time lite pop, but a few songs suffer from lack of heart.
• Big Canoe -- four great songs for me, but annoying 80s sound, at least two songs too long; a couple of the "rockin'" songs are horrible.
• Tim Finn --a good album, but a little too self-consciously aimed at the dull late 80s American adult contempo market for me.
• Before and After -- some great songs, but it's too long, it's a hodgepodge, some stellar outtakes left off, and I dislike a couple of tracks.

This album was therefore kind of a revelation -- it was all good in my opinion, sounded all of a piece and Tim's singing felt more real and authentic than it ever had. It's not too long and the songs that for me are weaker ("Need to Be Right"; "Some Dumb Reason") are still songs I like ).

The sound, i.e. the mastering is, of course, bad -- and I notice it more now in the age of playlists and so on. AT the time, I was just like, damn this is LOUD and it didn't bother me so much. I didn't even know what mastering was. I had noticed the trend from Together Alone on of the records getting louder, though. Afterglow showed up at about the same time in Denver and I noticed that was pretty loud too, though perhaps the overall mixing is a little slicker there so it sounds a little less annoying. But, like @HitAndRun, it's the songwriting that draws me in, and for me this one has it: and I really prefer his voice here to his younger voice, though his younger moments certainly are more technically impressive.

I'm an indie rock fan and I much prefer quirky, arty music to slick commercial music: I like the weirder elements that always lie underneath Crowded House's records, often lurking in the background, mixed low; so this album was and still is right up my alley. I also like a wide variety of music, and the simpler, acoustic based folk idiom I think suits Tim (and particularly his new voice) quite well.

I also like the nearly 50/50 split between some hybrid form of folk-pop and modern rock arrangments of the album: and I think it's interesting in that I never feel like I'm listening to two different sessions, as I do at times on Woodface or especially Before and After and even Try Whistling This.

Musically, I see Say It Is So continuing a phase of his career that started with Altitude and Finn: a consciously less commercially ambitious, more artistic phase, often guitar-based rather than piano based; and zooming in closer, I think that it's the middle part of a "rock" trilogy including Steel City and Feeding the Gods.

Many of us have noted certain obvious lyrical themes in the album; mostly new-love-and-family-as-rejuvenating force.. In most musicians domestic bliss seems to equate to slightly dull music, while emotional strife tends to make for interesting music. With the Finns, it seems almost the opposite. Neil got married and settled down in 1983, it took Tim over a decade before he did the same, but the results, in my opinion are clear.

This will be an unpopular opinion, but while I do not think it is best solo album (that was yet to come) Say It Is So is actually my second favorite Finn album of the 1990s, coming in after the perfect (for me) Together Alone. I really do think that this was the album, 15 years into his solo career and nearly thirty years into his overall career that he proved that he was a viable artist that could consistently put out rewarding music.

4.8/5

 

As with other albums we've reviewed, I'm grateful for the opportunity to do a deep dive into Say It Is So" and for the numerous insights that you all have provided. My initial exposure to Say It Is So was in 2008, after Imaginary Kingdom (which I loved and still love), and I have to say I was not impressed at the time. Some of this was a response to Tim's ragged voice. Some of it reflected where I was in life at the time (something that certainly was not Tim's fault): my marriage was in the process of falling apart, and I was encountering some serious health issues, so I was not exactly receptive to an album with numerous expressions of blissful love. I'm in a better place now, and so I'm glad to have a chance to revisit the album.

That said, I do still have some issues with the album. Tim's voice is ragged. Sometimes that can be an interesting sound, but sometimes it's hard to listen to. The theme of romantic bliss is a hard one to sustain in an interesting manner over the course of a suite of songs, and Tim can't quite pull it off here. For whatever reason, I really don't like Julie Miller's contributions--her voice just grates. Personal taste. One the whole, I've found Say It Is So an above-average album, but not by much, and though I'm sure I'll give it a listen every now and then, I doubt it will ever be one of my regulars.

3.5/5

 

I would not doubt that Tim wanted to, and enjoyed, making a rockier sounding album than his previous solo albums, but I also feel he had little choice given the limitations of his voice at this point. He continued to struggle vocally on his next album "Feeding The Gods" (again a rockier album) but then his voice changed again on "Imaginary Kingdom" and it is noticeable that he did not continue to write the rockier style of songs on SIIS and FTG, instead reverting back to a softer, much more melodic style that his 'reborn' voice could handle once again.

So for me there is not enough melody in the songs, added to the fact that I simply don't really like the sound of his voice like this. While I agree with Lance on his quibbles with Tim's previous solo albums, at least I enjoyed listening to the sound of his voice as an impressive instrument, and there were always a few songs on each album that I preferred to most of the songs on "Say It Is So", which is an album I rarely choose to play.

If I rated in fractions it would be 2.5 and 2 feels too harsh so I'll go with a generous 3/5

 

Very true. This one and the second two Oasis albums were the ones that first alerted me to that particular mastering trend.

 

I like Say It Is So but I don't love it and rate it just below Tim's self-titled solo album (and well below Before & After) among the albums of his that we've covered to this point. My problems with it are much the same as what others have already stated: the sound/production isn't great (I don't really believe that musicians aim for "lo-fi" or "indie" rawness; I think bad sound is just bad sound), his singing is sub-par, and the lyrics are occasionally treacly. I love "Good Together", "Need To Be Right", and "Death Of A Popular Song". "Roadtrip" is another excellent song but the version here pales next to the original recording from the Steel City record. Most of the other songs have their strong points and it's actually just the last two tracks that are the only ones on the album I don't derive any real pleasure from. Perhaps because those last two cuts leave me with a sour impression, I've unfairly rated the entire album lower than it deserves over the years. The first nine tracks are good-to-great.

There's not much that could have been done about Tim's singing voice at the time, but I do feel like a better producer might have turned the album into something that I would find more pleasing. I'm guessing that Tim couldn't have afforded Mitchell Froom, but his touch could have been just what this album needed. I do think that this album marked the beginning of an upturn in the quality of Tim's solo work, with his next three albums being even better than this one.

3.4/5

 

I remember the feeling of joy when it was announced, in late 1999, that a new Tim Finn album was to be released at long last. It had been more than six years since Before & After and when I met Peter Green after Largest Living Things' gig in St Kilda in February 1999, I asked him about Tim. He said he didn't have a record deal at that point in time and as the months went by with no further news, I had almost written off the possibility that there would ever be a new Tim solo album (kind of like the present, in fact). So it was great when Say It Is So arrived in my mailbox just before Christmas 1999. And it was an album that I liked pretty much immediately and I've kept returning to it frequently since then. I think it's definitely in my top 5 of Finn solo albums.
One thing that appeals to me about this album is that it sounds like Tim had accepted that he wasn't going to be a global megastar and that radio airplay probably wasn't going to happen to any great extent. Freed of those pressures it sounds to me like Tim felt free to write whatever songs he wanted to write and be true to himself and his own artistic visions. With Big Canoe, Tim Finn and Before & After, which I all like very much by the way, I got the impression that an A&R guy at the record company was lurking during the recordings and demanding songs that could get a lot of radio airplay plus that it seems that Tim himself wasn't sure what type of solo artist he wanted to be. I obviously don't know Tim the person, but from afar I've got the impression that he thrives in collaborations and deep down really likes to be part of a group (like Split Enz) and have that cameraderie and that working with expensive session musicians don't bring out the best in him. During the 1985-1995 period, I got the uneasy feeling that he was a reluctant solo artist - various circumstances had led to him being a solo artist at those points in time but that he didn't 100% enjoy the business/promo aspects of being a solo artist. When I heard Say It Is So, it really sounded to me that for the first time he truly enjoyed doing a solo album and having artistic freedom.
And I think this is a very strong collection of songs, catchy, well-written and with enough quirks to keep me interested as a listener. I think it was great that he this time didn't have a huge budget to play with and couldn't spend ages to work with zillions of producers and session musicians. Having some kind of limitations is often a good thing for creativity. Yes, his voice is rough on this album, but it is still uniquely Tim and I think it gives the songs a lot of character. Above all, both lyrically and musically this sounds like a very warm and honest album. I love it to bits.
4,85/5

 

I did not find a lot to love about Say It Is So. There are a couple of songs I really like, but overall the album suffers from unpleasant arrangement and production, as well as the problems with Tim's voice. 3/5 overall.

 

Say It Is So is an excellent album in my opinion, and I'd have to say one of Tim's best. Then again the next three are all excellent as well, I feel like Tim was at the height of his creativity during this period. I notice a lot of people have issues with Tim's voice on this album, me personally, I love it. I feel like it suits the material. Many have issues with the mastering, and yeah it's not perfect, but not really much of an issue for me. I mostly listen to CD's on a surround sound system using the "fake surround" setting on my receiver. I think this negates the loudness somewhat by spreading the sound around all 5 speakers. Well, at least it seems that way to me, I'm hearing everything quite clearly.

This is the first of Tim's albums that I like all the way through, his previous two were hit and miss for me. When I listened to the album a few weeks ago it was a very enjoyable experience, especially as I hadn't really heard it in quite a while, I really like and enjoy every track here. Underwater Mountain, Need To Be Right and a few others are absolute classics as far as I'm concerned. I think this album and Neil's Try Whistling This was the beginning of an extremely artistically creative period for both of them. All of the main studio albums going forward will receive very high praise from me (well except for The View is Worth the Climb, but we'll get to that later).

5 outta 5

addendum: (tomorrow night i'm planning on giving Feeding The Gods a spin, havn't heard it in 10+ years. I remember buying this one and Say It Is So at the same time way back when. To me they are almost like a double album, strangely enough. Really looking forward to it)

 

Put me firmly in the camp that thinks Say It Is So is not only one of Tim’s best albums, but it’s one of the finest solo Finn records. His voice isn’t the same. But, how many vocalists in their mid to late 40’s (Tim’s age range when he recorded these songs) sound the same as they did on records recorded in their 20’s and 30’s? When he was a younger man Tim’s voice was a true gift from above. A total one of a kind talent. Time inevitably took its toll on his voice. He sounds different, but still wonderful. Tim will always be one of my favorite vocalists.

I LOVE this album! 4.8/5.

 

I really liked Say It Is So when it came out, and still do. My mistake with this album was that it got buried under the weight of all the music I buy.

One of the benefits of threads like this is it reminds me to focus on music I like, and not music I accumulate (hoard). And Say it Is So is a keeper, it hangs together really well, the weaker songs are elevated by the stronger songs.

4/5 sounds about right.

 

Me too. I struggle to deal with it, because I always want to listen to the new music while continuing to listen to the old music; and let's face, it, how much time in a day do we have for listening to music when we are settled with jobs, families, etc?

 

Our votes for Say It Is So

1-0
2-0
3-3
4-3
5-4
Average: 4.055

 

For the next few days we're going to cover a few archival tracks associated with Tim Finn before moving on to Betchadupa's The 3D EP.

In 1978, Phil Manzanera, the Roxy Music guitarist who had produced Split Enz's second album released K-Scope, a solo album on which Tim Finn, Neil Finn and Eddie Rayner all guested on several songs, with Tim singing lead vocals on no less than four.

Today's song is "Remote Control" written by Ian MacCormick; performed and produced by Phil Manzanera; engineered by Gregg Jackman.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/0inpkB9eLV68Yg6HF7gtcH?si=YkjyoCjCSRKFzEnhiUPL_g

Line up:

Tim Finn: lead vocals
Phil Manzanera lead guitar
Simon Ainley rhythm guitar
Dave Skinner Electric Piano
Bill MacCormick Bass, backing vocals
Drums: Bill MacCormick
Backing vocals Neal (sic) Finn

 

Collated ratings for Say It Is So

Say It Is So

1. Underwater Mountain 4.06
2. Shiver 3.6125
3. Good Together 3.602
4. Road Trip 3.02
5. Currents 3.7775
6. Need to Be Right 3.0583
7. Twinkle 3.9587
8. Big Wave Rider 2.8555
9. Death of a Popular Song 4.08
10. Some Dome Reason 3.1125
11. Rest 4

Say It Is So: 4.055
Average by song: 3.5579

 

I have to say I'm pretty excited to start discussing the '00s in general in a few days. We've been in the 90s since about November.

Although I've heard them all, that was a busy decade for me; I started off with a nervous breakdown and working in a restaurant and advancing towards alcoholism; then moved country and settled down with a family with two stepsons, basically quit drinking, stopped smoking, worked like crazy, started a business and ended the decade with a son on the way. I was also digitally ignorant (I didn't use the Internet until I moved country in 2003 and didn't learn to download until 2009!) and I struggled greatly, financially-speaking, from about 2002 until 2012. AS a result, I got to all the albums after Feeding the Gods late.

I remember reading about Everyone Is Here in summer 2004 and burning to hear it but there was just no way for me to do that. There were still record stores back then, but the Finn Brothers are not sold in this country; nobody knows who they are. I doubt if they've ever done a show here. That album and the Tim albums and Time on Earth and Liam's stuff are all excellent albums that I didn't discover until the 10s after they were released and I have never felt like I've been able to get into them enough so this thread will help me do that.

 

Underwater Mountain is SUCH a wonderful song. That's probably my favorite Tim Finn effort of his entire career. (Young Mountain is also really good).

 

Lyric for "Remote Control" HERE.

 

I'm not a huge fan of the lyric here -- I don't hate it or anything, it just almost doesn't register to me; something about trying to separate the "bad people" from the "ones that really love". And destroying a "Remote Control" in the process.

But the song is a good, face-paced rock song. Despite Tim's (slightly sped up it sounds to me) fine lead vocal, which has a certain seventies art-rock character, the center star in this song for me is Phil Manzanera's beautiful lead guitar - which is probably as it should be.

The song itself is nothing special, but the sound is nice and crisp.

3/5

 

I bought K-Scope and heard Remote Control upon its 1978 release hoping/expecting Kevin Godley would be the vocalist on a few tracks like he had been on the previous Phil Manzanera record (yes, I'm older than Neil, not as old as Tim, and have been a mild Phil Manzanera fan for decades.) I was disappointed to hear this Tim Finn fellow singing, and at first I did not like this "intruder" at all. Fast forward to 1988 (was it only 10 years?) and I was eagerly looking forward to anything Tim and/or Neil related. I've rarely listened to K-Scope in the years since, but I now don't mind this track at all.

3.5/5

 

Interesting perspective!

 

Yeah, that's the thing with having a large music collection, good albums can become somewhat forgotten for long periods of time. I'm glad we have this forum and threads like this!

 

I've always liked the K-Scope album a lot. It's a pity that Manzanera, in my opinion, didn't keep the quality up. But, K-Scope and 801 are my favourite albums of his.

Remote Control is one of those songs that's both intelligent and at least a bit left field, while still being really catchy. Tim sings it very well supported by 'Neal Finn' (as on the LP I had in New Zealand) on backing vocals. I like the song, the arrangement, the performance, and the production.

Tim had a very capable and distinctive voice. I just wish he'd participated in more collaborations of this quality.

4.5/5

Interesting story. Good to hear you're in a good place now. I've only visited Czechia once, and then only Prague and Karlovy Vary. But, it looks a nice place to live.

Your comment on access to music shows how much things have come on. We could only dream of something like Spotify decades ago. Good for consumers (though - off topic - we've got to make sure it works for creators too.)

I've just discovered that the song was recorded seemingly during the Phil Manzanera/801 sessions, and sung by someone other than Tim. From the wikipedia credits for the album, I would guess Ian MacDonald himself.

 

"Remote Control" is a catchy song. I can't add much to what Lance wrote about it. Good to hear Tim's younger voice again and Neil's backing harmonies take me right back to the Frenzy/Luton era. It's not a classic or anything but it hits a good spot.

3.3/5

 

I love rediscovering albums that I haven't played in a long time. I'm just now doing that with the Drive-By Truckers The Dirty South, which has to be one of the best albums of this young century.