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

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Lance LaSalle, Jan 21, 2019.

  1. KangaMom

    KangaMom Queen of the Quokkas

    Hmmm, maybe I need to read the lyrics of "Show Me the Way". I thought it was mostly a song about the confusion of loving someone but maybe losing your way in the relationship...
     
  2. vikinghomepage

    vikinghomepage Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ireland
    I love the spaciousness of this one, it's almost in Twin Peaks territory sonically except less OTT. There's a whole sound world thing going on but everything is distant, like someone dancing on their own. The harmonies are beautiful, there are people but they can't get quite through, or you can't get out to them (something like that). Excellent tune, classic 2021 Crowded House.
     
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  3. UrAWizHar

    UrAWizHar Forum Resident

    Location:
    Scotland
    Show Me the Way is a song... on this album... and it's fine I guess. It suffers from the same problem as most of the album in that it just exists and nothing more. It's not interesting, it's not exciting and it's certainly nothing that I haven't heard before.

    2/5
     
  4. KangaMom

    KangaMom Queen of the Quokkas

    OK, I was way off base with my interpretation...

    I'm not even sure how I got my interpretation - I guess when you only occasionally tune in to the words (instead of it being sounds) you can end up in the wrong direction....

    I'm now totally reading this about a commentary of injustice in society and a plea for all us humans to stop being terrible to each other...actually it kind of makes me like the song a bit more.
     
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  5. jimbutsu

    jimbutsu WATCH YÖUR STEPPE

    The music and everything are fine, and it feels very Neil Finn, but there's not a story this is telling that lands with me lyrically at all. I don't know what else to say here.

    3/5
     
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  6. Lance LaSalle

    Lance LaSalle Prince of Swollen Sinus Thread Starter

    Our votes for "Show Me The Way"

    1-0
    2-2
    3-6
    4-6
    5-1
    Average: 3.46
     
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  7. Lance LaSalle

    Lance LaSalle Prince of Swollen Sinus Thread Starter

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  8. Lance LaSalle

    Lance LaSalle Prince of Swollen Sinus Thread Starter

    This is my favorite song on the album.

    That may seem wrong, as it's not a Neil song, and there is a lot of antipathy towards Liam, and to be clear there are a couple of crackin' great ones coming up -- I think the second half of the record is stronger than the pretty strong first half.

    But this song just grabs me emotionally in a way that few songs on the record do. Partially it's that the lyrics make some sort of sense to me and I guess lyrics are key to connecting emotionally for me.

    I love the percussion/drums, which recall past glories like "Private Universe" -- still my favorite Finn track of all time. I love the atmospheric sound and spooky synths; and the (yes) Beach Boys 20/20, "Breakaway"-style vocal arrangement, though badly recorded/mixed/mastered, is exquisite, one of the best I've ever heard on a Crowded House record.

    (What is the chanting at the end? "You're deaf man?", "The halfmoon?" I can't understand it.)

    My only regret is that the coda wasn't more stretched out but that would be aping "Private Universe"'s production style a little too closely.

    I always cream a little when I hear EJ sing, too. This is gloomy depressed Liam that was starting to dominate on The Nihilist, but importantly it feels from the heart and soul and real, it touches me on an album which I have largely admired but which has rarely touched me yet.

    .
    The relatively stripped back production -- I mean, for a Liam song, who is definitely a kitchen sinker --enhances the the melody and the instruments support it rather than covering it like the chaotic Brooklyn graffiti of The Nihilist. A beatiful night-time song.

    5/5
     
    Last edited: Sep 17, 2021
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  9. HitAndRun

    HitAndRun Forum Resident

    Goodnight Everyone

    This is a song Liam wrote alone. Sonically and stylistically it fits on the album well. The arrangements and performance are again consistent with the rest of the album.

    The melody is good, but perhaps it doesn't shine because in this context it is naturally compared to the Crowded House oeuvre.

    Again, backing vocals including the more inventive backing vocals near the end of the song help make the song more inventive and interesting. Nick's bass line is a good one and sounds very 'CH' to me.

    3.3/5
     
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  10. DiBosco

    DiBosco Forum Resident

    Location:
    West Yorkshire, UK
    Side Two of the album is great I think and this kicks it off in fine style. Is this really not Neil singing? If it's Liam it's remarkable how similar he sounds to his dad! Agree with @HitAndRun just how it fits into the feel of the album completely, I'd never have realised it wasn't Neil's composition if I'd not read it here. (I've clearly not read the liner notes well enough on this album!)

    I like the vibe, it's a good melody line and another dreamy feel (Dreamers are waiting, after all). It's amazing how not having a snare (for much of the song anyway) really mellows out a song massively. The drums are quite busy for such a laid back song, but they still don't overpower the mix at all. Like the floaty female backing vocals, especially that end note, lovely way to the end the song.

    As in he throws everything including the kitchen sink into production usually? Genuine question, I don't know any of his stuff at all.
     
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  11. Lance LaSalle

    Lance LaSalle Prince of Swollen Sinus Thread Starter

    Yes: his stuff is almost always self-produced and he plays all or most of the instruments and doesn't seem very good at editing himself. Lightsleeper and this song are both definitely better in this respect.

    The songs and melodies get obscured that's what I mean. I have long said that I think that what sets Neil apart is not his melodies (because a melody is a melody) but the way he couches the melodies in sympathetic arrangements writes lyrics that sound good carrying the melody, even if they seem, more often than not, to be generally a bunch of nonsense.
     
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  12. Paul H

    Paul H The fool on the hill

    Location:
    Nottingham, UK
    I'm with Lance on this one: Goodnight Everyone is the best track on the album. I just melt when I hear that ethereal guitar that drifts in and out. It just hits a spot. The mellow percussion is gorgeous and, yes, this could well be mashed with Private Universe.

    The melody is pretty but its the backing track that transforms this from good to brilliant. And in that regard, this is the closest we get to classic CH: those first four albums are chock full of good songs that were just arranged, played and produced to perfection. I'd love an instrumental mix of Goodnight Everyone: I fancy I could listen to it over and over for hours.

    5/5.
     
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  13. BeSteVenn

    BeSteVenn FOMO Resident

    I like most of Goodnight Everyone. Like other Liam songs, it's hard for me to not feel like it's all one verse, but clearly there is a chorus. It's that primary hook of the song, the insistent bass line, running throughout and wearing thin after a couple of minutes that weakens the song for me. I'd go for an ethereal remix, taking out the bass. Everything else about the arrangement, especially the backing vocals, is outstanding.

    It's really hard for me to tell if it's Liam or Neil singing, but since it sounds like a young Neil, I'd have to agree that it's Liam because 62-year-old Neil's voice is a touch more ragged (but still an amazing instrument).

    4/5
     
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  14. Lance LaSalle

    Lance LaSalle Prince of Swollen Sinus Thread Starter

    Yeah, Neil's voice is definitely a wonder of nature at his age ...Liam does sound like a lot like Neil when he's singing in his warmer, lower register.
     
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  15. DiBosco

    DiBosco Forum Resident

    Location:
    West Yorkshire, UK
    This is off topic, but I think that whole thing about arrangement (and production) is a fascinating aspect of what people possibly sometimes call song writing. There is a supposed piece of wisdom that you can tell a great song because you can pick it up, play it on an acoustic and it's still a great song. I don't think that's true at all, I think there are plenty of great songs that are made by arrangement and production.

    I am a bit of a producer/production geek and it's amazing how often I look at liner notes, to find on albums I love, that it's producer X or producer Y that I've seen many times before. Mitchell Froom is one, Don Gehman, Chris Kimsey, Scott Litt, John Leckie immediately spring to mind. I'm fascinated by exactly how much the producer changes the ideas that a songwriter brings to an album and how s/he shapes the sound. There are a couple of artists I really like who had a run of albums with one producer, changed that producer and I really suddenly disliked the next album. It's an unanswerable question, but I wonder whether I'd've liked those albums had they not changed producer.

    I do, of course, understand that:

    1. Other people love those albums I don't care for (as always I make it clear I am not the arbiter of taste)
    2. You can't carry on with the same style/producer forever as it gets too samey.

    I would just love to be able to afford to pay Froom or Gehman to come to produce at least a couple of my songs and see what the process is like, how different it would sound, and what he'd make us play differently to what we brought with demos. Susepct I'd need to remortgage my house to afford that. (With the ridiculous assumption either would be interested in my songs!)
     
    Last edited: Sep 17, 2021
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  16. brownie61

    brownie61 Forum Resident

    Goodnight Everyone

    This is a very good Liam song with a somewhat spaghetti western soundtrack feeling to it. Liam does a great job singing this one. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really start to reach out and grab me until near the end, when the drums really kick in, making the song more intense, and also the odd voices come in. Up until that point, it just seems a little too “polite” or something, for lack of a better word. This is another one I think I would like more if I could make some kind of connection with the lyrics.

    3.5/5
     
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  17. ToneM

    ToneM Forum Resident

    Location:
    Birmingham, UK
    Goodnight Everyone

    I tend to pick up Crowded House albums for Neil's songwriting, so I'm always a little begrudging of anyone else's effort taking up valuable space on the record, be it Paul or even Tim's All I Ask. I'm only familiar with Liam's output from I'll Be Lightning and Lightsleeper, neither of which I'm remotely fond of, so it was a pleasant surprise to find Goodnight Everyone to be one of the stronger tracks on Dreamers.

    The fact that Liam's vocals are largely indistinguishable here from his father's helps this track blend in well. It's a lovely mood piece with swirling ethereal guitar work and evocative, if predictably incoherent lyrics. Private Universe is definitely a touchstone here in terms of percussion style and the dreamy atmosphere it conjures. Goodnight is a little slight and shallow to be held up on the same plateau as the majestic Private Universe, but it's clearly mining a similar vein.

    Structurally there's not much going on as it just repeats then fades, but at least it doesn't over-egg or outstay its welcome. As @Paul H says, it's a pretty song that's elevated and enhanced by the beautiful arrangement. I've reshuffled it to the final track on my playlist, as I think it makes a perfect album closer.

    4/5
     
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  18. UrAWizHar

    UrAWizHar Forum Resident

    Location:
    Scotland
    Goodnight Everyone 3/5

    I agree that this is probably the best song on the album, but in the grand scheme of things it's still just an ok song. One thing I've realised listening through these songs again is that I really don't rate the drumming on this album, and that interplay between Paul and Neil was one of the things that made CH such a special band. Elroy can keep a beat but the drumming on this album is rarely more than functional timekeeping.
     
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  19. KangaMom

    KangaMom Queen of the Quokkas

    Goodnight Everyone - This is a song which really does sound like Crowded House, circa Private Universe. That's a good thing. I like the song and it contributes to how strong this part of the album is. I like everything about it, percussion, bass and vocal harmonies all working together to build a great sonic landscape. My only tiny issue is that I rarely recall it on its own. What I mean, is I've never deliberately dialed up this song to listen to even though I do think it's a great song. There's no "hook" per se that lodges in my brain to say that. But when I hear the song, I'm always slightly baffled as to why I don't listen to it more.

    Maybe that just means its an excellent album song (and I mean that in the best possible way) but would have made a terrible single which is a purely commercial perspective.
    4/5
     
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  20. KangaMom

    KangaMom Queen of the Quokkas

    I've wondered this before as well - it's part of the alchemy of creating music, right? Because the producer does have something to say about how to best present the song (in their opinion). So, if the artist and producer aren't in sympathy it can have mixed results and even worse if the artist or producer just won't accept the inputs at all.

    I realize it must be quite tricky for a producer to walk in and say to the artist that their music needs to be rearranged...I guess a good producer needs to be a good manager of people (and egos)... it's also probably why so much self produced music (looking at you, Liam) could be improved with the right outside perspective.
     
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  21. BeSteVenn

    BeSteVenn FOMO Resident

    And there are several albums (and individual songs) in the Finn family body of work that have been re-recorded with different producers. Second Thoughts, Everyone Is Here to name the two albums, and a multitude of songs have all had a second look taken with a different producer.

    It might be interesting when we catch up with the new releases in a a few weeks to have a specific discussion of what different producers brought to these songs' alternate recordings, especially since we have had a nearly complete turnover in thread participants since those Enz albums were thoroughly discussed.

    I respectfully submit this proposal to our courageous, hard-working, and forgiving thread leader, @Lance LaSalle .
     
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  22. DiBosco

    DiBosco Forum Resident

    Location:
    West Yorkshire, UK
    I've read several stories about this over the years. There are plenty of occasions of artists not liking the producer (Andy Partridge and Todd Rundgren a famous one for bands I like) . Remember reading about when the Wonder Stuff did an album (I think Hup) and how the producer got them to deconstruct all the songs and put them back together. The band were positive about this process, although I thought it was a poor album compared to Eight Legged Groove machine, it seemed to lose all the energy of the previous album and I often wondered whether the producer was responsible for that.

    And yeah, the managing of egos must be an horrendously difficult job at times. It can be really difficult persuading someone their song is too long, or that the arrangement is too crowded and so on. Sometimes the artist gets their way, remember reading how Johnny Greenwood was told that his guitar on (I think ) some tracks on Pablo Honey were far too distorty and stamping over things, but he wouldn't have it and recorded his way and it sounds amazing. So, I guess, as always there's that matter of the taste thing that can mean neither is necessarily wrong.

    In terms of things a bit more relevant to this thread, I'd love to know whose idea it was to use the weird sound effects at the beginning of It's Only Natural, how much of the drums sounds on Woodface were due to the drum kit used, how much was down to Mitchell Froom, how much down to the mix, how much is down to the style of music and the song itself. I've spent many hours in recording studios (I like nothing better), but almost all of it has been with rank amateurs like me and I'd love to be able to sit in with someone like Crowded House and just watch and learn. Suspect that possibility is gone now.

    Absolutely, if you're ever in the UK Lance, there is a night of free beers waiting for you as a thanks, for this and other threads you maintain. I do not know how you find the time!
     
    Last edited: Sep 17, 2021
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  23. jimbutsu

    jimbutsu WATCH YÖUR STEPPE

    I feel like I just don't get "Goodnight Everyone," and the whole thing is sort of bumming me out. I was so looking forward to a new CH album, especially after being so disappointed in Intriguer, but I am really struggling to connect with the songs, which feel sort of calm and safe. Maybe I'm unsettled and don't even see it , and I'll come back to this record in a few years more calm myself and it'll click - who knows? For now though, this son is completely inoffensive but I don't connect with it - sort of a theme for me and this album.

    3/5
     
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  24. StefanWq

    StefanWq Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vallentuna, Sweden
    I must admit I did have some concerns when I learned that Liam (and Elroy) were joining Crowded House as full members. I'm a fan of Liam's solo albums and at his best, he is very good indeed, but some of his songs on the solo albums are a bit over-experimental and unedited and I wasn't keen on that particular aspect being brought to Crowded House. However, the song "Goodnight Everyone" is just superb, one of Liam's very best in my opinion. I like the blend of melancholy and dreaminess, the "Private Universe"-ish kind of drumming, the exquisite vocal harmonies and the strong melody. In addition, Liam's singing is top notch on this song, possibly his best lead vocals yet. The song really fits on the album and I'd be very happy if it will be included in concert set lists too.
    4,6/5
     
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  25. Michael Rofkar

    Michael Rofkar Forum Resident

    Location:
    Santa Rosa, CA
    Sorry, I've been away on a mini-vacation with no internet, so to catch up:

    "Sweet Tooth" could have been a decent CH song with a more interesting arrangement and a better guitar solo. As it is, I find it sort of boring. 2/5

    "Whatever You Want" has kind of a 80's Brit-ska vibe (a la Madness), not least due to the busy bass part. It's fun to do housework to! 3/5

    "Show Me The Way" sounds like an Intriguer outtake, what with the whispery/falsetto parts - I swear I hear Sharon's voice in there. I'm fond of songs in 6/8 time, and this one works OK. 3/5

    "Goodnight Everyone" again reminds me of an Intriguer song ("Either Side of the World"), but here the background vocals are just too much. 2.4/5
     
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