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Saturday, Jul 11, 2009
Former Crowded House frontman Neil Finn still writes songs than can stun you with their beauty.
Sep 30, 2004 | When Crowded House hit the charts in 1986 with "Don't Dream It's Over," a pop song with a melody as bracing as the wind, something in the familiar sound, a sensibility, anchored it in your jaded soul. On a second listen, wry fatalist William Burroughs seemed to have slipped a stanza into the three-minute tune.
Now I'm towing my car
There's a hole in the roof
My possessions are causing me suspicion
But there's no proof.
The existential jolt in the chart topper signaled just one of the marvels of the New Zealand trio's debut album. With songwriter and singer Neil Finn at the controls, the album featured 10 more catchy songs about distant fathers, lying poets, star-struck fans, black days, cold winters, tombstones, saints and the singer's "auntie," who goes the way of Virginia Woolf: "Left her car by the river, left her shoes beside." Clearly, Finn was an extraordinary songwriter. The pop hooks and harmonies, rock beats and rhythms, and his own ingratiating voice -- fearless, wistful, cynical, tender -- never struck a false emotional chord.
Crowded House released three more magnificent albums before folding the tent in 1996. Since then, Finn, now 46, stretched his skills even further with two solo works, "Try Whistling This" and "One All." Last month, he and his older brother Tim (erstwhile leader of Split Enz, New Zealand's top '80s new-wave draw) released the enchanting "Everyone Is Here." On the album, Neil turns down the volume on his angst and dovetails with his brother's more somber nature. Yet as Finn's voice carves a searing melody above a swaying rhythm, fleshed out by acoustic guitars and chiming piano in "A Life Between Us" -- "And we're staring at each other/ Like the banks of a river/ And we can't get any closer" -- you have to grin at Neil's parlous musical phrases. Few songwriters can make pop music sound like such poetry.
Finn has earned his share of critical praise over the years. But not to the extent that he deserves. To mass audiences, he remains frozen in time with Crowded House, a one-hit wonder, a stereotype reinforced by retro media like VH-1 and lite-rock radio stations. Since his days in Crowded House, countless musical trends have driven him from the spotlight, and not just silly ones like prancing boy bands. As the '90s dawned, Public Enemy's riveting hip-hop claimed our attention, as did the sweet, soulful, desperate punk of Nirvana. When rock failed to satisfy, the stripped-down country music of Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Lucinda Williams filled the bill.
Lost in the march of pop music over the past two decades has been not only Finn but also the kind of exquisite song craft that he embodies. Rock evolved not just from Muddy Waters and James Brown but also from pop formalists like Barry Mann and Carole King, the 1960s Brill Building stars who were themselves indebted to George Gershwin and Cole Porter. This is the tradition that Finn has inherited, honored and translated into songs that stun us with their sophistication and beauty.
