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

One Nil/All is a frustrating beast. It has very fond memories for me, as it was the album I was listening to when I started courting my wife. However, I agree with Lance that it has too much material that just fails to hit the mark.

I remember hearing it for the first time and getting more and more worried as it progressed. It had taken me a long time to get into TWT and here I was listening to - not just the first or second - but even well into the third song before anything clicked. Even now, I prefer One All simply because it splits up that awful intro trilogy of The Climber/Rest of the Day Off and Hole in the Ice. It just didn't work for me and still doesn't.

So yeah, a mixed bag: I hate the opening quarter of the record but thereafter this isn't a bad record. My biggest complaint is that the playing/mixing/mastering just leaves it sounding so flat. It has none of the oomph, the swing, the sass of CH. Here it's just a string of competently played but badly produced songs. Which is a shame, because I think song-wise, it has the potential to be a classic.

 

Have got to say I strongly disagree with a lot of the comments here re One Nil/One All .

To me this is Neil’s last truly great album and he would never come close to scaling the highs on this album , though Time on earth comes close .

The only 2 questionable songs were the 2 that were replaced on One All and Anytime was fixed to mirror the live arrangement though the live versions are the best particularly Cold Live at the Chapel .

This is a near perfect album , The Climber , Rest of the Day off , Last to Know , Into the sunset and Turn and Run are without question Neil Finn classics .

To my ears Neil has not come anywhere close to reaching the shear quality of the songs on One Nil /One All in fact I know it says Neil Finn on the covers of Dizzy Heights and Out of Silence but it is most certainly not the Neil Finn on Together Alone , TWT and One Nil .

 

I listened to One Nil on more or less daily basis when it was new in 2001, but have rarely listened to it as a whole since. I tend to cherry-pick and just listen to the really good songs and for most other Finn albums I always listen to the whole albums, including any lesser tracks (to my ears). The album certainly has several great songs - Hole In The Ice, Wherever You Are, Last To Know, Elastic Heart, usually Turn and Run, Driving Me Mad and Into The Sunset - and two other really good songs, Rest of the Day Off and Anytime. However, as a whole it doesn't flow together all that well in my opinion, especially the second half of the album. I think one issue for me is the production/mix, too many songs seem to be filled with layers and layers of sound effects, programming, drum machines etc just for the sake of it, to make sure it sounds "experimental" or "cutting edge" or to impress other musicians or whatever, and some other songs sound like the 150th take was used. To my ears, it made the album sound dated even when it was new and it also makes me think that layers and layers were added to try and make the songs seem more interesting than they really are at their core. The other thing that troubles me with this album is that the musicians, skilled as they are, don't play Neil's songs with the same musical empathy and feel as Nick, Paul and Mark did. I think that's a pretty common situation for solo artists who used to be in successful groups - thanks to their previous successes they can now afford top musicians who may be more technically skilled than their old mates but that doesn't necessarily mean they can play with the same feel. Bands have been through thick and thin together over a long period of time, have achieved things together and failed together, have enjoyed success together and have had arguments at rehearsals together. All those shared experienced create musical chemistry, a special blend, and that is something very different to asking skilled (session) musicians to turn up at a luxurious studio and play the songs. In the fan club book Letters to my Frenz, there's a quote from Nigel Griggs who is interviewing himself. He's asking himself, "What advice would you give to young bands starting out?" and his reply to his own question is: "In one word - commitment. There are musicians in Melbourne who flit from band to band on different days of the week. It amazes me because I always joined bands with people who lived their lives for one band, twenty four hours a day, obsessively so - drive for hours just to play, carry the Hammond organ up the fire escape, get booed off and then break down on the way home. I have no idea how we made sense of it all, but that was the way it was; and if you're not going to stay together for at least five years it's hardly worth bothering, and that's really only time enough for a couple of CDs."
So, all in all, if One Nil had been a Crowded House album featuring Nick, Paul and Mark and there had been more focus on the songs than the production, I think it would have been a much better album.
I bought One All mainly for the two new tracks and I don't think they fit in with the other songs - which is not surprising since they are recorded around two years later than most of the other songs, with other musicians, a different engineer at a different studio. I don't think re-sequencing, remixing and deleting/adding tracks gave the album a better flow and to me "Rest of the Day Off" works much better as track two than as the penultimate track.
Either version of the album gets 3/5 from me.

 

While I don’t think One Nil/One All was was his last truly high quality release, I completely agree with the sentence I’ve quoted above. Something happened after Time On Earth and Neil’s music changed considerably. I still always find songs I love on just about everything he releases, but it has become much more hit and miss for me.

 

I think he’s actually been influenced quite a lot by Liam’s solo music.

 

Yes, there is that. But I mostly like that influence. I don’t think the piano dirges (and there are more and more of them over the years) are Liam’s influence.

 

Yes, you are right.

 

One Nil is not just my favorite Finn related album, but one of my favorite recordings of all time. It's absolutely perfect to me. (Other albums I would put in this category: OK Computer, Frank Black & the Catholics, Imperial Bedroom, Achtung Baby, Summerteeth, Skylaking, & a few others). I listened to this album a lot when it was released and it became a favorite pretty quickly. I've listened to it on a regular basis since then, and this most recent listen confirmed it's classic status to me. I'd call it Neil's masterpiece.

The three opening tracks and how they segue together is absolutely brilliant. I really can't think of many albums that open this strong. Every song has something about it that really appeals to me, and I love all the little touches thrown in, whether it's a cool sound effect, a processed vocal, or a simple drum machine rhythm. This seems to me like Neil's most varied album, with acoustic songs, experimental tracks, psychedelia, rock, everything I like, Neil touches on. It's hard for me to pick out favorites, but "Elastic Heart", "Secret God" and the first 3 tracks do stand out somewhat. And for me personally, I think the CD sounds great (at least on my system), while I would love a vinyl version (which seems very doubtful) I am quite happy with the sound of the CD, (kudos to the recording engineers). Oh, and really nice cover artwork, also.

I never really thought of this album as a collaboration with Wendy Melvoin, but now that's it's been brought to my attention, I guess I have a new found respect for her. Neil - please consider working with her again!

One All is a nice alternative version of the album, but the sequencing seems all wrong to me, I prefer the original mixes, and (gasp) no "Elastic Heart"!!! But, on a positive note, the two new tracks are both absolute classics, imho.

As much as I love Crowded House and Neil's other solo albums, this album is just really special to me, I will love it 'till the day I die.

One Nil 5/5
One All 4.5/5

 

One Nil is such a frustrating album to come to an opinion about, as there are so many examples of feeling conflicted (on the one hand it's good because.....but on the other hand it's spoiled by.....). And to make it even more frustrating, the good and bad points are not even consistent throughout the album. So "The Climber" is spoiled by the ebow sound, "Hole In The Ice" pales in comparison to its inspiration "In My Command", while some of the songs have great verse melodies but weak choruses, while other songs have cluttered, gimmicky production, etc. etc.

But having said all that, I cannot just write the album off altogether because there seems to be a lot of unrealised potential in the songs, as evidenced by some of the superior live performances of them. So while I feel that One Nil does not work for me at all as an album, I enjoy playing many of the songs individually and would rate them quite highly among Neil's solo work, especially when compared with the songs from Pajama Club or Dizzy Heights.

As an album, however, One Nil is a huge step down from Try Whistling This which is not ideal for an artist just beginning his solo career. At the time I was worried that Neil's follow up to this would also be a step down, but thankfully he put his solo efforts on hold for over a decade and in the meantime gave us the high quality trio of EIH, TOE and Intriguer before it all came crashing down again with Pajama Club and Dizzy Heights.

One All is an improvement song-wise, as I prefer the replacements to the discards, but the album as a whole still doesn't work for me because the sequencing is worse than One Nil and it's impossible not to be aware that the new songs were recorded later and so feel out of place with the rest.

3/5 for both albums

 

One of the difficulties of writing later in the day is that so much of what I want to say has already been said, and said well. So please forgive me if some of the following sounds familiar:

I listened to One Nil and then One All a lot in 2001-03and yet since then I'e listened to them only infrequently. Some of that is because new stuff has come along, of course, but it's also true that the albums never really set their hooks into me. One Nil's production did not age well--the low-fi, high-compression combination that nearly suffocated parts of TWT is even more pronounced here, as is the tendency toward quirky instrumentation ("Rest of the Day Off" being the most notorious example, I think). It also had a couple of songs I really didn't care for: "Don't Ask Why" and (I know I'm in the minority here) "Elastic Heart." One All represented an improvement by replacing those two with superior songs (even if they clearly were from different sessions), but it also took a small step backward by resequencing: mood-wise, "The Climber"-"Driving Me Mad"-"Hole in the Ice" is a fairly dark opening. On the whole I prefer One All--it's not Neil at his best, but it's the more consistent of the two variants.

One Nil: 3.5/5
One All: 4/5

 

Wow. I guess my music appreciation skills went missing on "Lullaby Requiem". I think I'm the only one here who doesn't love that one.

I love One Nil and find it one of the strongest, and certainly most consistently good albums Neil has made outside of the Crowded House banner. There's not one weak track on the album; every one of the 12 songs is at least good. It doesn't have the absolute high points that Try Whistling This does (there's no "She Will Have Her Way", "Sinner", "Last One Standing", "Astro", or "Faster Than Light"), but it doesn't have any of the weak tracks that make TWT somewhat inconsistent ("Twisty Bass", "Dream Date"). Instead, One Nil starts at a high point with "The Climber" and remains there. The two songs that were dropped for One All fit in well with the original tracklist and are good songs themselves. Although I like "Human Kindness" a lot, it doesn't fit as well with the other songs as "Elastic Heart" or "Don't Ask Why". My favorite three cuts on the album are "Last To Know", "Driving Me Mad", and "Into The Sunset". None are perfect 5s for me, but they are in the upper 4s and really top notch Neil Finn compositions and recordings.

For me, One Nil has been, to date at least, the last consistently high quality Neil Finn-involved album with the exception of the two latter-day Crowded House albums, both of which I like even better. Of the rest of his output, Out Of Silence comes close but is missing something for me. His other projects (with Tim, Pajama Club, with Liam, and his other solo album) haven't come really very close (with the possible exception of Everyone Is Here) to the level of excellence displayed on One Nil.

I gave TWT 4.2, so I'll give One Nil 4.3.

(Although I prefer most of the remixes on One All, the track order is vastly inferior and I don't like "Lullaby Requiem" as much as either of the two dropped songs from One Nil, so i'll give One All a 3.9.)

 

Paul H gave it a 3. He voted late and I didn't tally it in because, well, it probably would have brought the overall score down only a few decimal points.

 

Which is exactly why I remain opposed to Liam joining Crowded House. I don't think his influence is a good thing.

 

I think it would be if it manifested itself simply in Neil adopting different arrangement/production ideas, but it seems to manifest itself in his songwriting style. As I see Liam as by far the lesser of the two songwriters, this can be nothing but a bad thing. But we're jumping waaayyyy ahead.

 

I prefer the songs on One All (4.2), but it doesn’t seem like a cohesive album like One Nil (3.8/5) does. I don't have a preference for the original mixes or the do-over remixes, I find something to like in each of the variations.

I would have given 7 of these 14 songs a perfect 5/5, if I hadn’t started down-grading from my former lofty heights. I think @robcar and @Lance LaSalle are correct in their being more judicious in their ratings. I do stand by my perfect scores for The Climber, Lullaby Requiem and Into The Sunset. And I should have rated Wherever You Are higher than 3.8.

My overall ratings for each album would have been much higher had it not been for Last To Know and Elastic Heart, I still have found nothing to enjoy in the studio versions of those two songs. I have to admit that when Neil played Last To Know on Fangradio several weeks ago I didn’t think it was bad. I’ll have to go back and listen to the Fangradio version again, hopefully I will come to enjoy the song as much as most people here do.

I’m glad Neil chose to work with Wendy Melvoin, what a band Neil, Jim Moginie, Wendy Melvoin, Nick Seymour and Michael Barker would make.

I said at the start of these songs that One Nil/One All could be my favorite Neil Finn "solo" album. Now I’m convinced it is, but I have to say I really like them all, and I look forward to everything to come.

 

Stefan wrote: "...the musicians, skilled as they are, don't play Neil's songs with the same musical empathy and feel as Nick, Paul and Mark did. I think that's a pretty common situation for solo artists who used to be in successful groups - thanks to their previous successes they can now afford top musicians who may be more technically skilled than their old mates but that doesn't necessarily mean they can play with the same feel. Bands have been through thick and thin together over a long period of time, have achieved things together and failed together, have enjoyed success together and have had arguments at rehearsals together. All those shared experienced create musical chemistry, a special blend, and that is something very different to asking skilled (session) musicians to turn up at a luxurious studio and play the songs."

I think that's a perfect analysis, and I suspect it's why Neil Finn's music never again reached the dizzy heights that Crowded House occupied in their heyday. The camaraderie of a seasoned band is something that cannot be replicated or replaced. I also suspect that using his sons is no substitute.

I've never listened to One Nil all the way through in one sitting, so I'll confine my comments to One All. For starters, the song substitutions are for the better, and the running order seems just fine to me. The album is marred by some production choices - I can always do with fewer synthesizers and drum machines - but there are some very good songs that come close to Neil's best work, the top mark going to "Lullaby Requiem".

As with Try Whistling This, One All was initially a bit of a letdown for me - high expectations of aural thrills that weren't quite forthcoming - but I've grown to appreciate its qualities, particularly through listening intently in the context of this thread. I give it 4/5 overall.

 

Our votes for One Nil

1-0
2-0
3-2
4-4
5-2
Average: 3.9

Our votes for One All
1-0
2-0
3-2
4-5
5-1
Average: 3.8

 

Today's song is "Underestimated", written by Neil Finn, Wendy Melvoin and Tchad Blake; produced by Neil Finn and Tchad Blake.
It streams here: The Kitchen Sink IV — Neil Finn

"Underestimated" was released as a B-side on Wherever You Are double CD single in Europe and the Rest of the Day Off CD single in Australia.

Lyric: I'm unsure of some of it, though.
Underneath the carpet cleaner
Get up for the miracle morning

Feel like smoke in my chest
I cant give advice to anyone
If my boat comes to rest
On the reef, scare that shark away
If the smell on my breath
Underestimate, you are the one
Take it away

I swim for the farthest breaker
My wet suit is made of rubber
And in the titan fist, a dagger

Feel that pain in my chest
I cant give advice to anyone
If my boat comes to rest
On the reef, scare that shark away
Hide the smell on my breath
Oh dusky maiden, you are the one
Take it away

Come on, wake up
I dont want wait for anyone else
Come on, it's not as bad as you think
Here wake up,
I dont want to wait for anyone else
Come on, it's not as bad as you think
Ay-ay=ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay!

Now here I'm out to justify, justify
How my heart can see in the light
And when you paint her nails, turn to rust
And don't have words, a stink of gas
I thought I was a blunderbuss

What do you do when you run for the ball,
trip your own feet

 

Reading those lyrics, I have no idea how the song goes. 2/5

 

Neil goes synth-funk. This does kind of remind me of stuff Prince recorded 81-83 stuff. (For 1999 or songs which were recorded during the Purple Rain era but didn't make the album. "Erotic City", stuff like that.)

In a nutshell, I could just cut and paste my words on "Don't Ask Why" here: I really like the backing track ; and I think there is decent melody hook struggling to emerge from this; but ultimately I feel like the song is half-formed and unfinished -- and that goes for the lyric too.

I'm afraid this kind of thing is not Neil's forte, but it's got enough going on, especially the trippy backwards guitar, and the overall mood, the claustrophobic, nervous feel, to keep me mildly interested. Perhaps a line or two about doing it doggy-style on some sunny cliff would help.

The "come on, wake up" bit sounds just a little like a middle 8 from a song from Everyone Is Here. The one that goes "and it has to be clear..." Which one is that?

3.1/5

 

I remember listening to these 2 songs on the Rest of the Day off CD single and just thinking they are probably the worst songs Neil has ever put out (up to that point ) and I have not listened to them since .
I have no problem with electronica (being a massive New Order fan ) but you still have to have a good melody otherwise it will just fall flat just like some of Noel Gallagher’s god awful music he has put out recently.

0/5 for me for these 2 songs , bloody terrible.

 

Underestimated

I think this is an interesting experimental song. I haven't heard it much, having not bought the singles when they came out. I *must* have heard it at some time as I've been though all the Kitchen Sink stuff. But, I've played it so little that I might as well have been listening to it for the first time.

It's an interesting song and I think it does have a melody. Just not a typically NF melody. The song wouldn't fit on One Nil, so I think presenting it as a b-side works well. I really like some of Noel Gallagher's recent songs such as 'Blue Moon Rising', which is perhaps a bit stylistically similar to 'Underestimated'. Comparing the two songs, the Noel Gallagher song is more refined and 'finished'.

The beat that starts the song, as well as the bass part is a bit crude, but not necessarily in a bad way. Neil sings in an interesting way and with an interesting vocal melody. The backwards guitar (presumably) bits are interesting. Once I get used to the rhythm it works. There song develops well over time with various parts (I haven't carefully analysed the structure to see if it fits a standard verse-chorus-bridge structure or anything. Like many songs of this period, the coda works well for me.

The lyrics are, I agree, perhaps in need of some further refinement.

I like the experimental nature of this song and that Neil was prepared to try something different.

3.2/5

 

Underestimated - I know I have heard this before, but I might as well have been listening to it for the first time this morning because I had no recollection of any of it. It has a decent groove, but not enough to hold my interest. Others do this type of thing better.

2/5

Part of Me, Part of You

 

Under Estimated 3.5

 

I really like the “c’mon” part at 1:50. The rest sounds like it was written around a loop. A not particularly interesting loop.
I have this cd single somewhere...
2/5