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

Time ON EArth for newcomers for the next two days.

Our song-by song discussion begins here; our album discussion begins here.


STricken by the death of Paul Hester, Neil recorded an album with Ethan Johns solo album in New Zealand and England; waxing nostalgic he employed Nick Seymour on bass. After recording the album, and inspired both by Paul's loss and the Split Enz reunion of 2006, and noting that Nick brought a certain familiar flavor to his songs, he decided it should be a Crowded House reunion album. So he invited Mark Hart to join in and, after hiring new drummer Matt Sharrod, the foursome recorded an EP's worth of songs with Steve Lillywhite that were then sprinkled throughout the album and the whole thing was dubbed Crowded House.

The album was released on June 29th, 2007. It charted in several countries, going to #1 in Australia, #2 in New Zealand and #3 in the UK. It charted at #46 in the US. It went platinum in Australia and silver in the UK.

On vinyl and digital, Time On Earth was a 16 song double album; on CD it was trimmed to 14 songs.

Collated ratings for Time On EArth

1. Nobody Wants To 4.76
2. Don't Stop Now 4.1941
3. She Called UP 3.85
4. Say That Again 4.2
5. Pour Le Monde 4.1563
6. Even a Child 3.9281
7. Heaven That I'm Making 3.9267
8. Stare Me Out 3.0692
9. A Sigh 3.923
10. Silent House 4.8625
11. English Trees 4.5667
12. Lost Island 4.0071
13. Walked Her Way Down 3,98
14. Transit Lounge 3.5767
15. You Are the One to Make Me Cry 3.525
16. People Are Like Suns 4.1125

Time On Earth 4.13
Average by song: 4.0399

• I Pray to Heaven 3.3
• Here's a Note 3.3333
• Purple Light 3.2409
• So Dramatic 2.6875
• Stare Me Out [Alternative Version] 3.5344
• Bound To Rescue 3.1714
• Won't Be Silent 3.5383
• People ARe Like Suns [Piano Version] 4.1833
• Everybody's Talkin' 3.63
• Blue Hotel 2.8333
• Guiding Star 3.3625
• Women (Make You Feel Alright 3.0708

Australian Tour Sampler bonus CD: 3.635
iTunes Festival London: 3.95
Live at Real World Studios EP no rating

 

The album is too long, even on the shorter CD version(I tend to listen to a needledrop of the vinyl version as it sounds much better than the CD version); and it's a bit samey. But it is very possibly the finest finest collection of Neil Finn songs of his entire career. I rated it 4.6 originally; that seems stingy. I'm going to raise that to 4.9/5.

I do make two playlists from this, which I'll post later.

 

Lance, this one deserve to be reconsidered. Time has made it even better.

I think this is a great record. It's a mature Crowded House which includes the great chemistry and vibe the solo records miss. Don't Stop Now continues to float into my mindspace out of nowhere on a regular basis, a great pop song. And I can't count how many layers deep English Trees goes, so simple and so complex. If you haven't heard this one, you are missing out.

 

Time on Earth

This is one of my favorite Neil Finn albums. It’s not perfect, and contains a few songs I don’t love, including one I flat out can’t stand (Silent House). Despite that, the album taken as a whole is among Neil’s best work, and quite possibly his most brutally emotional.

5/5

 

I’ll start by saying that Time on Earth is my least favorite Crowded House album. But as I've said before, the band is so good that it's not really an insult; I still think this is a very good LP. Some of these songs just don’t quite land for me, but there are a couple that bring the album up quite a bit.

Nobody Wants To
This is hauntingly beautiful. Obviously beautiful in a way that mourns the death of Paul. Great verses and chorus alike, and the middle 8 is one of the best of Neil’s career. Wonderful song with a heartfelt sentiment that you can really feel.

4.6/5

Don’t Stop Now
I never quite fully got into this one. It’s a little on the safe side. It literally sounds like it could be any alt-rock/pop band to me. I like the backing track, middle 8 and Neil’s vocal a lot though, I will say. I do like it overall, but don’t find it to be a CH classic like some do.

3.8/5

She Called Up
Another song with great instrumentation. This is more of a classic CH song to me than “Don’t Stop Now”. Neil sounds unreasonably great, and this is just a really catchy pop number. The only thing I dislike are the la-la’s; they almost ruin the song for me, but they don’t stay too long, thankfully.

4.3/5

Say That Again
This is very good. I like the darker, night-time sound going on. Great chorus, and just a really good track overall.

4.2/5

Pour Le Monde
I think I used to like this song more than I do now, but I still find it to be an album highlight. Wonderful piano number that sounds like something that could have been on One Nil.

4.5/5

Even a Child
Why ruin these great verses with such an awful chorus?? It really brings the song down a lot for me. I never listen to this song because I dislike the chorus so much, which is a shame, because almost everything else here is pretty great. This’d be a 4.5/4.6 song if the chorus was better, but that’s just my take.

3.5/5

Heaven That I’m Making
More great verses, but the backing track isn’t very good and the chorus is lousy again. Good middle 8, though.

3.2/5

Stare Me Out
This is wonderful. The classic Crowded House sound is here for sure. I could hear this being a song on Woodface; I can envision Tim doing the vocal harmonizing with Neil here. Great stuff.

4.4/5

A Sigh
I used to hate this song. I don’t know what changed, but I kind of appreciate it now. There’s a truly genuine ethereal sound going on, and it’s very effective. It is a bit boring overall, but there is beauty here. If it were rating this song at the time you all covered it, I’d have definitely given it a 1 or 1.5/5, but now it gets a:

3.3/5

Silent House
This is absolutely gorgeous and somber all at the same time. I never got around to listening to the Dixie Chicks version of this track, but I can’t imagine it’s as heavy-hitting as this (update: just listened to it; it’s very nice actually, but the CH version is better). This is definitely my favorite song on the album, and one of my favorite CH songs in general. Just a triumph of songwriting, instrumentation, and performing.

5/5

English Trees
Nah, not really feeling this one. It’s okay, but there’s something about it that doesn’t sit right with me. It’s just unengaging, though I don’t find it to be awful.

2.9/5

Lost Island
Great track, but comes just shy of being a highlight. I’m a sucker for this slow, “Time Immemorial” type time signature as we’ve established, so that raises my opinion of this song. Nice, but not amazing overall.

3.8/5

Walked Her Way Down
This is a pretty good one, but no more than that, really. Not much to say about it; it’s filler, but it’s pretty good filler.

3.4/5

Transit Lounge
Stupid airport announcements... This song is fairly good. Like the song above, it’s filler to my ears, but a nice song anyway.

3.5/5

You Are the One to Make Me Cry
This is my least favorite song on the album by quite a bit. It’s the “All I Ask” of this album. Nothing here gets me; it just plods.

2/5

People Are Like Suns
This is my other favorite song on the album, after “Silent House”. Just brilliant with a beautiful lyrical concept. I sometimes think of Paul when this song comes on. This is just a marvelous song, a great closer, and another I’d put in my list of top Crowded House songs.

5/5

For the extra tracks, the highlights for me are "Here's a Note" (4/5) and "Purple Light" (4.1/5).

Overall this is a good album, but not quite as consistent as other CH albums. There are a few big highs with a few somewhat lackluster tracks, but mostly stuff between 3.5 and 4.5 for me.

I want to also give a thank you to Lance for allowing us late-comers to revisit these albums, and for adding this one for me. I know I’ve enjoyed writing about the songs I wasn’t here for, and I’ve also enjoyed reading everyone else’s take on them!

3.8/5

Track Picks: “Nobody Wants To”, “Stare Me Out”, “Silent House”, “People Are Like Suns”.

Low Points: “Heaven That I’m Making”, “English Trees”, “You Are the One to Make Me Cry”.

 

Time on Earth 4/5

I have a huge soft spot for this album. It is easily the best of the 3 post FTTW albums by some distance.

The album is a bit too long (certainly on vinyl) and some of the clunky songwriting that would become more and more of a "feature" of Neil's work was starting to creep in but there are some genuine classics on it, Don't Stop Now, Transit Lounge and Silent House being particular favourites. The album drops a point because of the duds though. English Trees is a song that to this day I cannot quite believe that anyone could bear to listen to, and whilst I understand why She Calls Up perhaps had to be recorded the way it did I don't think the contrast between the lyrics and the upbeat Nanananahs works. I also cannot hear Even A Child as anything other than complete rip of the melody of It's Raining Men, of all things. What we have then is a solid 10 track album unfortunately weighed down by too many tracks that should have been firmly on the b-side pile. I guess that's the issue of it's birth as a solo Neil album coupled with 4 band songs.

I do also find it pretty annoying that the vinyl re-issue of this album was fudged badly, what with the cover being misprinted as a single rather than a gatefold and the label on the vinyl that looks like the kind of craft project my youngest son would come up with. It's a pretty poor show that the covers were not replaced at least.

A bit of history - I never got to see Crowded House live, I was just a little young before they split up to get the chance so when they reformed it was incredibly exciting. I saw them play what was, I think, only their 2nd or 3rd gig at the ill-fated Outsider Festival in Aviemore (not, as Nick twice refered to it, Inverness) in such pooring rain that the preceding band The Gullimots were forced to play acoustically for fear of their equipment blowing up. It was a great gig despite the weather and a slightly underrehersed band, and after 2 encores the crowd refused to disperse leading to the band returning to play Something So Strong at double tempo to give us one more song before the curfew. I retired damp, muddly and happy to my tent having finally seen my favourite band live.

 

Time On Earth

Oddly I was at a 'Crowded Scouse' (supported by 'Squeezed') tribute gig when I heard that Crowded House were reforming. I'd been looking forward to Neil's new solo record for some time, so was a little skeptical of what seemed on the surface to be a cynical sales move. On closer inspection it's clear that a fair portion of the album concerns Paul, so it's fitting that Nick and Mark play on at least some of it.

Whatever the intentions, the result was a hybrid Frankenstein's monster album in the vein of Woodface, except here the wildly clashing styles proves a greater obstacle. As ever I'll cover the version I'm familiar with, the 14 track CD.

Nobody Wants To
A perfectly gentle way to ease into the long and varied road ahead. At first I was a little nonplussed about this seemingly by the numbers track, but it's simple charms have since won me over. I love how it builds slowly and carefully into a wistful crescendo. There's a real touching sadness ingrained within, common to many of the album tracks, but never more clearly and efficiently presented than here.

Don't Stop Now
Probably the best song ever written about sat nav. By this stage Neil seems to be struggling for subject matter, given his desperate "Give me something I can write about". Daft lyrics aside, this combines a lovely lilting beat with an irresistably surging chorus. A deserved first single and one of the finest tracks on a fine album.

She Called Up
This tremendously bouncy, catchy tune is offset by the paradoxically dark, sad subject matter. When I'm not focusing on the meaning I find this terrific singalong fun, otherwise it's a strangely bittersweet experience. The la-la-la's are quite irritating, to the extent where I attempted to cut them out by splicing in the instrumental version. I think I've made my peace with them now. On the whole, another winner.

Say That Again
This rather creeps along in a passable low key manner, before temporarily springing to life in the "go on making moments last a lifetime" sections. It's largely unmemorable though, not aided by the intangible lyrics.

Pour Le Monde
I have 3 minor issues with this otherwise fine ballad:
1. "And they believe their own dark medicine, Believing it’s good" is a seriously clumsy sounding phrase.
2. The chorus is a bit of a damp squib, that I feel should soar upwards rather than bring things crashing to the ground.
3. Dropping French phrases in always comes off pretentious.

That said, the verse is a thing of beauty. Niggles aside, it's a really nice, if slightly obvious in your face ballad.

Even A Child
The awesome guitar intro really jolts me from a pleasant slumber set in by the previous tracks. Marr's influence makes this one of the least Crowded House sounding tracks, but it's a great poignant melody and sentiment. Always loved this track.

Heaven That I'm Making
Like Say It Again, this is a take it or leave it track for me. The peculiar time signature gives the impression it's a little off the beat. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just distinctly average.

A Sigh
Barely a song, it sounds more like an improv warm up. It's like Gentle Hum on sleeping pills. There's at least some hints of a decent tune under the minimalistic murmuring.

Silent House
Brilliant. It takes an age to get going, but that slow burn is part of its appeal. The explosive chorus underpins a heavy emotional rollercoaster of a song.

English Trees
Neil has written many a lovely song in his time, yet this a contender for the most stunningly beautiful. Such a precise, delicate build, slowly swooping up into its heavenly transcendent climax. Easily makes my NF top 10.

Walked Her Way Down
This has got something of a late Enz feel in the shadowy atmosphere and chiming guitar. As a slinky dancey number it rather stands alone on this record, but nowt wrong with a bit of variety.

Transit Lounge
My initial reaction to this was "What on Earth?" It's largely softened since to "Why? Just why?" It's all very silly, particularly the "coconut grove" falsetto sections. There's also the creepy "breathe on her" lyrics to contend with. It only springs to life in the latter half, signalled by Beth Rowley's wondrous warbling. I think I'd rather listen to a whole 3 minutes of that to be fair.

You Are The Only One To Make Me Cry
I'd like to like this one, given the clearly earnest true story inspired lyric. However it's just too darn sappy and mimsy, with a grating falsetto stretched too high. The music sounds like it should be backing some manipulative heart string tugging Christmas supermarket advert.

People Are Like Suns
For me there's a thin line in piano ballads between ones I really appreciate and others I find plodding. This is most definitely in the plodder camp. It's not without merit, it just strikes me as rather safe and dull in an Elton kind of way. It also seems to drag on far longer than it does.

Time On Earth is an understandably melancholy effort of real highs and lows. It could've been better edited down as it's overlong at 14 tracks, never mind 16. I appreciate though it's very subjective as to which of the many tracks available should've been included. Due to its patchwork origins, the album lacks a little focus and could've been tighter if Neil hadn't been set on turning apples into oranges. That said, I've listened to it a whole lot over the years and would still rate it as Neil's last great album.

4/5

Back when TOE was being discussed here, I was inspired by the custom playlists to put my own together. Mine is snappier and poppier with maybe less depth, losing almost half the standard album tracks. Here's A Note is a cracking melody that just needed a tiny bit more development and polish. Lost Island, as Neil has rightly commented recently, should've been on the CD. A gorgeous South Sea shanty in the spirit of Kare Kare. I've included the Beatle-esque alt version of Stare Me Out, as the final release was a noisy mess in comparison. I was disappointed at the time that title track Time On Earth didn't make the cut, because I really liked the webcast demo. So Purple Light slots in nicely as the penultimate track...

Nobody Wants To
Don't Stop Now
She Called Up
Here's A Note
Pour Le Monde
Lost Island
Even A Child
Stare Me Out (alternate)
Walked Her Way Down
Silent House
Purple Light
English Trees

 

Clearly something has gone horribly wrong. There's no way The Les Patterson Long Player is a better album than either Dizzy Heights or Pajama Club. This is just a fact.

 

Here are my playlists. Of course as always these are just mostly attempts to "un-hodge-podge-ify the album", while catching the outtakes and such in listenable chunks, without the home demos and alternate takes interspersed in them. I generally don't give a whole lot of thought to track order, to be honest. It's just more practically-inspired than anything else.

The first one is an Ethan Johns produced Neil solo album with special guest star Nick Seymour, pretty easy to make: just cut the Lillywhite tunes and use the piano version of People Are Like Suns (which I prefer, anyway.)

1. Nobody Wants To 4.76
2. Say That Again 4.2
3. Pour Le Monde 4.1563
4. Heaven That I'm Making 3.9267
5. Stare Me Out 3.0692
6. A Sigh 3.923
7. Silent House 4.8625
8. English Trees 4.5667
9. Lost Island 4.0071
10. Walked Her Way Down 3,98
11. You Are the One to Make Me Cry 3.525
12. Distance Across [studio demo]
13. People Are Like Suns [Piano Version]

The second one is a playlist that I imagine as vintage 2006 EP: it's basically Roundhead studio demos that list Neil and Nick as producers; some songs have Joey Waronker on drums.

1. Stare Me out [Alternative Version]
2. Here's A Note [studio demo]
3. Purple Light [studio demo]
4. So Dramatic
5. Won't Be Silent [home demo]
6. People Are Like Suns [album version]

The third is true Crowded House, more of a double EP: the Lillywhite songs and the 2008 pre-Intriguer songs.

1. 
   
   
   • Don't Stop Now
   • She Called Up
   • Even A Child
   • Transit Lounge
   • Only Way To Go Is Forward [live]
   • Isolation [Studio Demo]
   • God Lives Over the Road [Studio Demo]
   • Beautiful Life [live] -- or studio demo from fang radio
   • Bound To Rescue [live] or studio demo from fang radio (does it exist?)

 

Yeah, haha. I definitely agree. Hardly anybody voted on it.

There are a few instances where I think things are somewhat underrated (Dizzy Heights, Pajama Club, Lightlseeper, Altitude.).
But overall, I agree with most of the rankings.

A lot of the songs near the bottom were only voted on by a few people so it's naturally going to very easily skew: a single 1 can really make a difference. There are people who really hated Pajama Club and Dizzy Heights and they didn't vote on Les Patterson at all; I'm sure if they had it would be at or near the bottom. (I like it more than Elroy,though.)

Maybe I wouldn't put Dizrhythmia at #4 but I'm fine with it in the Top Ten. And Pablo Vasquez may be the most boring thing I own, but it sits higher up than I would put it.

 

I always look at the album rankings and ask myself if I would listen to the top 20 (ish) albums. The answer is always YES. There's nothing there to object to. If I look at the bottom 20 I can equally say that it seems about right - they are interesting but I'm not beating the door down to listen to them.

 

Yep, called Honour Bound.
Fangradio Wednesday 22 April 2020 — Fangradio

Cool playlists as always.

 

Thanks I thought so, and I have it on my hard drive just couldn’t be bothered to look it up.

 

2 Tim Finn latter day playlists of odds and sods. Again just a way to group these strays together in listenable playlist. I'm rebuilding these playlists as I type as earlier when I updated my OS it wreaked havoc on my playlists. Tell me if I've missed anything!

1. Comet [demo] 1996 -- from I Like It Rare, 2001
2. I See Red -with Regurgitator, "late nineties" from Rarities/Demos/Live Performances Vol. 1
3. White Cloud Black Shadow 2002 from Rarities/Demos/Live Performances Vol. 1
4. Pulled It All Down -2005 from Rarities/Demos/Live Performances Vol. 1
5. Every Good Boy Does Fine -- 2006, internet
6. The Lonely One [live, unreleased]
7. Cool [live, unreleased]
8. I Shall Be Released [live unreleased
9. My Secret Heart [version 2] 2008, internet
10. False Hope -2008, Australian iTunes bonus track,
11. The Lonely One [live, unreleased]
12. Cool [live, unreleased]
13. I Shall Be Released [live unreleased]

1. Into The Water -- 2009, The Finn Brothers, from Poor Boy
2. Who Owns The song - 2009, internet
3. Riding The Wave (2009) - from Seven Worlds Collide, The Sun Came Out
4. Nothing Unusual 2010 - from North, South, East West...Anthology -
5. Light Years Away 2010 - from North, South, East West...Anthology -
6. Mockery iTunes bonus track 2010 - from North, South, East West...Anthology -
7. Predicament - 2010, from film
8. Emptiness - Internet Song
9. A World Away - Frenz. bonus track 2011
10. Questions And Answers iTunes bonus tracks
11. Moment To Moment -2011 internet
12. Lament - 2011 internet
13. Rising and Falling 2013, film

 

Our votes for Time On Earth (with newcomers' votes added.)

I've counted and recounted this like five times and kept getting different numbers. ( haven't been getting much sleep and woke up at 2.30today so that may be part of my befuddlement.

My original post rated Time on Earth at 4.35, but when I recounted this morning I got 4.3. Even more weirdly, on the "album ranking" list I put it at 4.13.

With the new comers' votes added I get 4.2764. I got that twice so I'm sticking with it.

1-0
2-0
3-1
4-7
5-9
Average: 4.2764

 

Albums ranked.

Time On Earth: the score went from 4.3 down to 4.2765. The ranking before was #20 but that was erronneous: it should have been tied for 12 with Mental Notes. Now it's gone down a bit from what it should have been to #13, but it appears to have gone up considerably for my mysteriously low ranking previously, which must have been based on a typo.

It's an exact science, but I am no scientist.

Green: abums with Tim and Neil
Orange: Neil Finn
Blue: Tim Finn
Purple: Tim Finn/Phil Judd albums
Magenta: Liam Finn albums
Grey: Neil Finn and sons albums
Light blue: elroy
YELLOW!!!! HARPER FINN (RUNNING OUT OF COLORS)

1. Woodface 4.7477
2. Together Alone 4.7333
3. Time And Tide 4.7
4. Dizrhythmia 4.5333
5. Everyone Is Here 4.5312
6. True Colours 4.5125
7. Frenzy 4.4944
8. Before and After 4.4542
9. Temple Of Low Men 4.4206
10. The Rootin' Tootin' Luton Tapes 4.42
11. Try Whistling This 4.3556
12. Mental Notes 4.3
13. Time On Earth 4.2764
14. Caught By The Heart 4.2571
15. Second Thoughts 4.2438
16. Afterglow 4.24
17. The Conversation 4.1727
18. Finn 4.1531
19. Imaginary Kingdom 4.15
20. Tim Finn 4.1385
21. Crowded House 4.1154
22. One All 4.0005
23. Say It Is So 3.9964
24. FOMO 3.9625
25. The Fiery Maze 3.9
26. Beginning of the Enz 3.8667
27. Out of Silence 3.85
28. The View Is Worth the Climb 3.84
29. I'll Be Lightning 3.8364
30. Waiata/Corroboree3.8333
31. Feeding the Gods 3.833
32. COLLECTED WORKS OF HARPER FINN 3.8101
33. One Nil 3.8
34. The Nihilist 3.7778
35. See Ya Round 3.7
36. Intriguer 3.6615
37. The 3d EP 3.64
38. Conflicting Emotions 3.62
    
39. Aiming For Your Head 3.6143
40. Suzanne Bartsch On Top soundtrack 3.6 (only two votes)
41. Big Canoe 3.5675
42. Dreamers Are Waiting 3.5269
43. Escapade 3.495
44. The Alphabetchadupa 3.28
    
45. Altitude 3.3111
46. Lightsleeper 3.2385
47. Steel City 3.2
48. Pablo Vazquez 3.1825
49. The Les Patterson Long Player 3.1667
50. Betchadupa 3.125
51. Rain 3.083 (song average)
52. Dizzy Heights 3
53. Pajama Club 2.89722
54. Elroy 2.644

 

Today we are going to start discussing some songs I did not go over originally either from oversight or the fact that I didn't know they existed.

The first song is "Platform 3 [live] " written by Neil Finn. It is the sixth song in the below soundcloud link.

SoundCloud Widget

By After Hours.

After Hours was a band Neil Finn was in with Geoff Chunn (who had played drums and electric guitar on Split Ends' first single "For You/Split Ends".) Neil played piano in the band and Geoff played guitar.

This song was recorded live at the Maidment Theatre in Auckland on April 7th, 1977. Immediately after this performance, Neil caught a plane to England to join Split Enz, breaking up the band. What could have been...

This was released on The Kitchen Sink II streaming album on Neil's site in 2013.

 

Here's a link to that soundcloud widget that actually plays this song at the top, I didn't know you could do that:
SoundCloud Widget

 

This is very very early Split Enz sounding, like pre-Mental Notes. It is definitely Phil/Tim pastiche....or maybe rather than seeing it as pastiche, it should be seen as proof that Neil would have fit in with Split Enz no matter what and was meant to be in that band. And yet there's a bit of that Elton John-ish influence that you hear on "Serge/Late In Rome| too.

It meanders, but pleasantly. Good recording too! How is it After Hours, basically a group of nobodies, has such a good live recording but the only recordings of Split Enz from this era are horrible sounding audience bootlegs?

Anyway...3.4/5

 

This is a little too "Piano Man" at times for my liking (I really don't like that song), but it also has a nice, quaint, early Enz sound to it as well. It's a bit crazy to think just two and a half years later, this same guy would write "I Got You". That's not meant to be insulting to this; it's just such a jump in songwriting prowess.

I agree Lance that this is ultimately a little on the meandering side, though it's still cool to hear, and I'm glad Neil made it available for everyone to hear.

3.2/5

 

Please make sure you get some sleep...

 

Thanks for the second opportunity to discuss each album Lance. Very much enjoyed reading everyone's comments.

 

Platform 3

It's hard to believe this is a live recording! As Lance has already mentioned, how do After Hours get such a great recording live and Enz from the same era is totally awful sound wise?

Anyway, I'd have to agree that I like the fact that I've heard it and it does wear its influences rather on its sleeve...I definitely hear the early Enz influence (no surprise there) and Elton John. Still it's an extraordinary song given that Neil was just 19 years old. Yes, it meanders a bit and isn't as tightly crafted as Enz songs from the same era but it could have been. I'd like to think that Neil would have had the same career even if he hadn't joined Split Enz, based on his talent alone. But there is no ignoring the fact that NZ (and Australia) were very far away from the musical action and him flying to London right after this was definitely the opening to his now very impressive career.

3.6/5

 

Platform Three
Wow, I'd assumed this was a demo rather than live, judging from the sound quality. I can hear the early Enz influence, although to me this is more generic 70's troubadour. The piano work and Neil's high vocal are spookily reminiscent of early Billy Joel. It's a pleasant listen, if a bit meandery.

Shows promise. The front man could go far.

2.75/5

 

I like "Platform Three" for showing Neil's early influences ... in graphic detail. I'm glad he shed the Billy Joel, and kept the Split Enz and a little of the melodic influences of Elton John. His voice matured way beyond this in just a few years, and became much more powerful than this early sample would indicate.

It's interesting to listen to as a curio, but if it weren't Neil Finn I wouldn't be at all interested. But it is Neil, so it's nice to have.

3.25/5