This Week I Have Mostly Been Listening To… Crowded House

The New Zealand-born brothers, Tim and Neil Finn, have, between them, released no fewer than 39 albums in the 52 years since the older brother, Tim, founded his first band, Split Ends. And that’s just the official studio albums. If you include compilations, live recordings, soundtracks and other collaborations, we’re probably looking at twice that number.

The Auckland-based band played their first gig in 1972, changed their name to Split Enz in 1974 and went on to become the first New Zealand band to achieve major international success, with the single I Got You reaching #12 in the UK charts in 1980. Tim’s younger brother, Neil, had joined the band in 1977 and they carried on (with varying degrees of success) until it all ground to a halt in 1984.

That might have been that, but Neil soon had a new project on the go. Initially called The Mullanes, the band formed from the ashes of Split Enz, soon morphed into Crowded House and, in 1986, the self-titled debut album was released, featuring the international hit single, Don’t Dream It’s Over. Since then, Crowded House have released a further seven albums.

The first four albums (released between 1986 and 1993) arguably represent the band’s golden period, with the classic line up of Neil Finn, Paul Hester and Nick Seymour being augmented by the addition of Tim Finn on the 1991 release, Woodface. But we shouldn’t ignore the four more-recent Crowded House albums (including the brand new 2024 album, Gravity Stairs) or the solo albums released by the brothers, or indeed the two albums released under the Finn Brothers moniker in 1995 and 2004. Great songwriters like the brothers Finn don’t suddenly lose the ability to write great songs even if they don’t always achieve the heights of their glory years.

Whittling down 38 years of the music of Crowded House into a seven-song playlist was an exciting challenge and I have to say that I’m pleased with the result.

Enjoy…