Celebrating NZ music throughout May: 3 – Split Enz & Crowded House

Yesterday was talented sisters, today it’s talented brothers Tim and Neil Finn. Although they both have solo careers, they’re probably best known for their two bands Split Enz and Crowded House.

Split Enz

Split Enz was founded in 1973 by Tim Finn and Phil Judd. They were considered to be New wave‎, ‎art rock and ‎pop rock. Their first two albums Mental Notes (1975) and Second Thoughts (1976) didn’t do a great deal, and there was a change in line up in 1977. Some of the founding members left and new members including Tim’s brother Neil Finn joined the band.

Their third album Dizrythmia (1977) had one hit, “That Was My Mistake”, which wasn’t known much outside of Australasia. Let’s have a listen to that now.

The big hit from their 1979 album, Frenzy, was “I see Red”. There are so many great songs from these brothers that I’m not including this one, but if you go back to my Muttonbirds post, @kiwiscanfly posted a link in the comments to a performance of this song with the NZ Symphony Orchestra that’s well worth a look.

Their next album True Colours was released in 1980 and had two singles “Poor Boy” and “I Got You”, which we’ll check out now.

The most well known track off their 1981 album Waiata (released in Australia as Corroboree) was “History Never Repeats”.

They released three more albums before they disbanded in 1984. Time and Tide (1982) included “Dirty Creature” and “6 Months in a Leaky Boat”. Conflicting Emotions (1983) included “Strait Old Line” and “Message To My Girl”. Great songs all!

But we’re going to finish up with “I walk away from you” from their 1984 album, See Ya 'Round

Crowded House

In 1985, Neil Finn founded a new band with Australians Paul Hester and Nick Seymour. Later band members included Neil Finn's brother, Tim Finn, and Americans Mark Hart and Matt Sherrod. While I liked Split Enz, I am more of a Crowded House fan, and they DO have more hits to choose from, so let’s get started.

The hits from their debut album,Crowded House (1986) were “Don’t Dream it’s Over” and “Something so Strong”. Let’s start with Don’t Dream It’s Over, which was another feature of the choir’s kiwi concert last year.

Temple of Low Men (1988) produced “Better be Home Soon”

They really started making their mark with their 1991 album Woodface. It featured five singles "Chocolate Cake", "Fall at Your Feet", "Weather with You", "Four Seasons in One Day", and "It's Only Natural". Out of those, I’m picking Four Seasons in One Day. This is live 10 years later.

And the rest of the album was just as good. (Ok, I’m a fan, right?) So let’s have another one - "There Goes God", also live.

A massive seven singles were released from 1993’s Together Alone, including "Distant Sun" and "Locked Out". Here’s an acoustic version of Distant Sun

But I also have to include my favourite from this album, Private Universe

Crowded House disbanded in 1996 and Neil and Tim both had solo careers, as well as performing as the Finn brothers. But they later reformed with a different line up to produce two more recent albums - Time on Earth (2007) and Intriguer (2010). Here’s Saturday Sun from Intriguer.

In 2016, Crowded House were inducted into the ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association Music) Hall of Fame. They have won 13 ARIA awards during their career.

Solo careers

This post is already way too long, so if you want any more from their solo careers, I’ll leave you to research that yourselves.

But I’ll leave you with some news from last month. It was announced that Neil Finn would replace Lindsey Buckingham for an upcoming Fleetwood Mac tour. Read more here.

Featured on the NZ Music Month website today

No new video here today. Just as well, it gave me more room to blather on about the Finn brothers!

Thanks for listening

Videos from Youtube. Top image is the official logo and appears everywhere. This copy came from Eventfinda.

Follow me for more health, nutrition, food, lifestyle and recipe posts. For an archive of 2016 & 2017 posts, by category, see my last post of 2017.

Contact me in SteemitChat to ask about one on one nutritional coaching or EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) sessions by Skype. (Then put a comment on my most recent post, so I know to find you.) Steem, other altcoins or Paypal accepted.

If you’re from New Zealand (Aotearoa) and are looking for other kiwis, use #teamnz as one of your tags // check out other posts with #kiwi or #teamnz tags // follow @teamnz // or join the South Pacific channel on Discord. There is an old list of kiwis on this post.