Lost Gem of the 80s #11: Crowded House - st (1986)

I’m often asked what my favorite album of all-time is. Well, it’s this one.

Even while making such a huge declaration, I struggle to find a reason why that would compel everyone to listen to it. What I’ve decided is that it sounds like home to me. Not my house, or where I was raised, or even the era in which I grew up. It sounds like home because the sound, the melodies, the songs, the voices and instruments are so comfortable and familiar.

Lead singer Neil Finn gets my vote for the greatest songwriter in rock history. Well, him and Paul McCartney. The reason being, he/they seem to have a wellspring of catchy, familiar, yet fresh melodies inside of them that never dries up. Nothing is flashy or edgy or on the fringe. It’s so simple and honest and it rings true every single time. That is an urgently underappreciated talent, especially in today’s music environment. His contemporaries are not other rockers, they are Gershwin, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Henry Mancini, and Irving Berlin. Artists that contribute to the canon of musical history. If Neil has one weakness, I would have to say it’s his lyrics. They are not always as universal as the melodies are. But, that’s a small complaint.

Of course, everybody knows “Don’t Dream It’s Over”. Almost no one seems to know it by name until you say the “hey now, hey now” part and then the light goes on. The album had one other top 10 hit, the far less enduring “Something So Strong” and that’s it for hits from Crowded House. A few others flirted with the top 40 over the next seven years, but nothing quite cracked it, leaving CH with the moniker of “two-hit wonder”. This is another one of life’s true travesties.

This album itself tossed out three other singles, the comparatively dark “World Where You Live” and the brighter “Now We’re Getting Somewhere” and "Mean To Me". None found the masses, but they’re equally as good as the hits and serve to make the spectrum of songs on the album more robust. Adding to the depth is producer Mitchell Froom. His distinctive and immediately identifiable style has since become really stagnant, claustrophobic, and redundant (sadly, Neil continues to use him on his solo albums, much to my chagrin), but it was fresh and powerful in ’86. Some complain it makes the songs too busy with an organ here and some brass there, but I think it gives it heft and greater reasons to revisit the album since sounds sometimes surprise and come out of nowhere. Considering CH is just a trio, Froom becomes a crucial fourth member that helps round out and fill up the sound and spaces. You don’t always want that from a producer, but it works here big time.

So here it is, the gold standard of contemporary pop music. And if it weren’t you’d never be able to convince me otherwise.

One sad postscript. Drummer Paul Hester committed suicide in 2005, breaking my heart. CH put on a great live show, full of audience banter and loads of comedy. Paul was often the biggest clown of all. He was actually a really sad person behind the act.

The Nugget: Man, this is next to impossible. “That’s What I Call Love is the one I probably play most often, and "World..." has been creeping up recently, but today I’m feeling “Hole In The River” (I prefer the album version to this live one, but it's all that's out there). It’s definitely a Froom driven track, a vast soundscape and collage of swirling moods and sounds. It’s what I’m digging right now.

In A Big Country

The spark of motivation for starting this blog was created during an email exchange with my friend Chris Standish (my wife's sister's boyfriend) about bands we love. Me being the 80s junkie that I am, I asked him if he had any feelings about Big Country, one of my faves. God bless him, he felt like I do. This jumpstarted an exchange I've wanted to preserve because it nailed my feeling on, not only Big Country, but love for my fave bands and the responsibility of fans to support their rock heroes.

For those who don't know, Stuart Adamson, lead singer and guitarist for the band committed suicide about 7 years ago and it still doesn't sit well with me. He wrote such passionate songs about life and love and yet he couldn't muster the same passion to save his own life. It's so incongruous and heartbreaking. It's lyrics like "I'm not expecting to grow flowers in a desert, but I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime" that inspired me to begin writing and naming this blog. Below is excerpts of Chris and I's exchange. Maybe some readers can relate in some form.

"I've always wished I could have let him know somehow that I thought he was great, in case it would have made a difference. That's lofty, I know. When your rock heroes kill themselves, especially guys like Stuart and Paul [Hester, drummer for Crowded House, my all-time favorite band above all bands] who are in bands long out of the public eye, but completely entrenched in my heart, I feel some personal responsibility, like I wish I could have been there to nurture them back to health. If they did it because they didn't feel loved, well I loved them a lot! You know? Maybe just knowing that would have changed something. I'm sure it wouldn't have, but it would make me feel better.

"The first Big Country album I ever bought or owned was Peace In Our Time and it's terrible. It was high school and I took it to school once and it got stolen and I never bothered to replace it. It was just so far from their early great stuff. I think because that is where I started with their albums, it took me a while to pick up any more. I got their Best Of in college and it, along with Talk Talk - Natural History, are priceless. It gives you all you need to know about the latter work. "Wonderland" and "East Of Eden" are my faves. So, [then I go to work for Tower Records in their marketing and advertising department] and have access to free cds, as well as a lady friend I had at the time who loved Big Country too, which served to enhance and strengthen (if not even create, women will do that) my devotion, so I asked their label, Navarre, to send me whatever stuff they could. I got 3 of their Rarities discs. Not essential, but it helped to jumpstart my collection. Then, I pick up Why The Long Face for a buck somewhere. Again, not a great album, but by now I was willing to accept them faults and all. Finally, about a year or two ago, I bought The Seer and The Crossing. (Oh, Steeltown was obtained during a visit to the Bay Area by said lady friend. That's when I finally broke through to the good stuff and regained some trust after the Peace In Our Time disappointment).

"I find that I've begun to gauge my love of a band by how much money I've spent on them. So, used and Tower freebies don't count toward them because they wouldn't have seen any royalties. In that case, they were paid when I bought Peace, Seer, Crossing and Best Of, and the rest don't count. When I go through my collection and see how few bands I love that I can say I've spent that much on, I'm happy for them. Bands are like political candidates, if you believe in what they're doing, you have to show it by opening your wallet. Otherwise, they aren't given any indication how much you care. It's sad but true."

Chris pointed me to a beautiful article written by the one-and-only Dave Eggers about the band right after Stuart's suicide. Isn't it ironic that the man that admonished us to "Stay Alive!" couldn't do the same. The link is here: http://www.spinmagazine.com/features/magazine/2004/07/now_less_informed_opinion/