Tag Archives: Crowded House

Ten Essential Crowded House Songs

Ten Essential Crowded House Songs

“Crowded House is a band that initially won listeners over with their undeniable wit and oddball charm,” American Songwriter’s Alli Patton writes in an article, which recommends the band’s top ten best songs. “The New…

Returning to the ‘96 Crowded House Farewell

Returning to the ‘96 Crowded House Farewell

Twenty-five years ago, much-loved band Crowded House bid farewell to the world, performing a free concert at the Sydney Opera House to a crowd of more than 100,000 people. The Sydney Morning Herald has…

Crowded House Is Back and Loving It

Crowded House Is Back and Loving It

With this month’s release of Crowded House’s latest album, Dreamers Are Waiting, journalist Russell Brown interviews the “reconstituted” band for The Sydney Morning Herald at Neil Finn’s Roundhead Studios in Auckland. They’re fresh from a…

There Are English Trees in Neil Finn’s Garden

There Are English Trees in Neil Finn’s Garden

A recent Guardian reader-curated playlist about trees includes songs from the Beach Boys, Esperanza Spalding, the Shamen and Crowded House. “Since time immemorial trees have provided people with shelter, food, lumber and even medicine. They…

First-Rate Wines from Marlborough

First-Rate Wines from Marlborough

“New Zealand is home to some of the world’s most beautiful landscapes: rugged mountain ranges, lush rainforests, and tranquil coastlines. New Zealand’s unique terroir also yields crisp, vibrant, lively wines reflecting the very essence…

Crowded House Play to Adoring Fans in Sydney

Crowded House Play to Adoring Fans in Sydney

“The decision as to when to call time on a band must be a truly wretched one,” Alexandra Spring writes for the Guardian. “, Crowded House returned to the place where they called…

Crowded House to Be Inducted into ARIA Hall of Fame

Crowded House to Be Inducted into ARIA Hall of Fame

Cherished rock-folk group Crowded House will be inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame during the ARIA Awards in Sydney on 23 November. Crowded House’s induction has a touch of serendipity about it. This year,…

Forgotten Crowded House Song Helping Refugees

Forgotten Crowded House Song Helping Refugees

Songs can grow and assume new shapes with time, and pop’s power to engage people has taken Crowded House’s 16-year-old ballad Help is Coming and given it new life as a charitable ode to…

Tim Finn Loves Writing Songs More than Ever

Tim Finn Loves Writing Songs More than Ever

Forty years in the music business, one of New Zealand’s most celebrated singer-songwriters, Tim Finn, 63, recently performed his new collaboration, White Cloud at the Galway International Arts festival. White Cloud may be derived from…

Miley Cyrus & Ariana Grande Perform Kiwi Classic in Aid of the Happy Hippie Foundation

Miley Cyrus & Ariana Grande Perform Kiwi Classic in Aid of the Happy Hippie Foundation

Dressed in animal onesies, Miley Cyrus & Ariana Grande perform Crowded House’s No. 1 hit Don’t Dream It’s Over in aid of the Happy Hippie Foundation.

Crowded House the ARIAs’ First Superstars

Crowded House the ARIAs’ First Superstars

At the inaugural Australian Record Industry Association awards (ARIAs) in 1987, New Zealand judge (and now Australianised) Jenny Morris was joined by a countryman whose second band was named best new talent and went…

Neil Finn’s Latest Solo Album His Funkiest

Neil Finn’s Latest Solo Album His Funkiest

“Neil Finn makes pop music, and good pop music at that. He can’t help it,” espouses the Sydney Morning Herald’s senior music writer Bernard Zuel, and he “makes the oddest and, to these ears,…

Finn to Release Third Studio Album The Nihilist

Finn to Release Third Studio Album The Nihilist

Liam Finn has announced the release of his first full-length studio album in three years, titled The Nihilist. The Melbourne-based singer-songwriter has also unveiled the album’s first single, Snug As F-ck. The track…

Cry Over This

Cry Over This

Crowded House song Together Alone is what British music blogger Paul Sinclair wants played at his funeral. Sinclair chose the track as part of the Guardian series ‘Six Songs of Me’. “The…

Emotional Provocateur

Emotional Provocateur

Auckland singer-songwriter Sam RB’s song Stand Tall has been chosen from more than 300 entries as the theme of the New Zealand contingent at the London Olympics. The New Zealand Olympic Committee invited songwriters…

Antipodean McCartneys

Antipodean McCartneys

Message to My Girl is a “latter-day classic from Split Enz” and “the missing link between I Got You and Crowded House’s Don’t Dream It’s Over according to the Guardian’s Russell Cunningham writing for…

From a Different Perspective

From a Different Perspective

Former Split Enz frontman Tim Finn, 59, plays the Tanks Arts Centre in Cairns on 26 November, which is to coincide with the release of his latest album, The View Is Worth The Climb….

Covering the dream

Covering the dream

Britain’s got Talent star Susan Boyle performed Crowded House classic Don’t Dream It’s Over on The Oprah Winfrey Show in October with the cover also included on Boyle’s new Christmas album The Gift. “Don’t…

Classic Q for Finn

Classic Q for Finn

Neil Finn, 52, earned a Classic Songwriter Award at the Q Awards 21 held in London at Grosvenor House on October 25. He was presented with the award by Scottish singer KT Tunstall, who…

Return post-change

Return post-change

Crowded House head to South Africa in October performing concerts in Cape Town and Durban before ending their tour in Johannesburg on the 3th. Neil Finn said he and the band have fond memories…

Default pop accent

Default pop accent

Auckland University of Technology University culture, discourse and communication masters student Andy Gibson has found that an American-influenced accent is the default when singing pop music. Gibson studied three New Zealand singers and looked…

Second wave cohesion

Second wave cohesion

Crowded House performed with Lawrence Arabia July 13 at Montreal’s Metropolis as part of the band’s North American tour promoting Intriguer, the second album of the “second wave”. Frontman Neil Finn says the band’s…

Good investment

Good investment

Crowded House, “the biggest thing from New Zealand until the Lord Of The Rings films shows no sign of flagging”, according to the UK’s News of the World reviewer Dave Freak after the band’s…

Crowded House: Don’t Dream It’s Over

Crowded House: Don’t Dream It’s Over

The video for the classic Crowded House track, Don’t Dream It’s Over.

Compelling qualities

Compelling qualities

Crowded House will release their first studio album Intriguer in June through Universal Music worldwide. The ten-track album Intriguer, recorded in Auckland, is the follow-up to Time on Earth, which hit No. 1 in Australia and New…

Seizing the Spirit

Seizing the Spirit

Crowded House are proving popular in the UK as a second concert at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall was added “due to phenomenal demand after tickets for the first night went on sale,” the Express &…

Sun out soon

Sun out soon

Crowded House frontman Neil Finn has collaborated with the Smiths’ Johnny Marr, Radiohead’s Phil Selway and Ed O’Brien and new additions Wilco to produce a double-disc collection called The Sun Came Out, proceeds of…

Collision with the big guns

Collision with the big guns

Te Awamutu-born Crowded House frontman Neil Finn is Billboard’s featured artist, just ahead of a planned studio project with his son singer Liam Finn, UK band Radiohead and American rockers Wilco. In a sequel…

Trans-seasonal Vistas

Trans-seasonal Vistas

A Toronto Star travel piece likens NZ’s famous TranzAlpine train journey to the Crowded House hit Four Seasons in One Day. Star: “In half a day, it travels from summer-like warmth in the farmlands…

An appreciative audience

An appreciative audience

The Telegraph describes Crowded House’s performance as “just like old times” and Neil Finn’s voice as “Lennonnish” in a review of their show at Manchester’s MEN Arena. “There’s a long tradition of audience participation…

Emotions running high

Emotions running high

Crowded House were praised for their “emotion-drenched performance” at The Greek Theatre in an LA Times review. LA Times: “he group’s exquisitely crafted songs are infinitely rich with melodic and harmonic invention but lyrically…

Crowded House on Love and Loss

Crowded House on Love and Loss

An LA Times review finds Time on Earth, the new album by the recently reformed Crowded House, to be a moving exploration of love and loss. “Pop music reunions are, more often than not,…

Don’t Dream it’s Over

Don’t Dream it’s Over

A new album and world tour by Crowded House, has made headlines across the globe. According to chief songwriter Neil Finn, he and bass player Nick Seymour have been considering regrouping since the tragic death of…

Crowded House: Weather With You

Crowded House: Weather With You

Crowded House performs Weather With You live at the 1993 PinkPop Festival.

Shark Attack

Shark Attack

“More than 14,000 fans screamed along to anthems from the Split Enz and Crowded House song books. There was no doubting the brothers’ enduring relevance with songs from their latest album Everyone is Here…

A House Less Crowded

A House Less Crowded

March 26 saw the tragic death by suicide of drummer Paul Hester,  Melbourne-born member of seminal NZ bands Split Enz and Crowded House. “We all knew him as an effervescent, vivacious fireball of talent,” said soul singer Renee…

Pure dynamite

Pure dynamite

Global sales of Pure, the international debut album by teenage singer Hayley Westenra, hit the one million mark in early January. Released in September, Pure is the best-selling debut classical album in British chart…

Strutting in their genes

Strutting in their genes

New Zealand’s “young kid band with famous fathers”, otherwise known as Betchadupa, tours Australia for the Big Day Out series. Frontman Liam Finn bears the iconic surname of Split Enz and Crowded House…

Seven Worlds will Collide

Seven Worlds will Collide

“It’s like stumbling into your own birthday party – you don’t know where to look first. Centre stage is Neil Finn, hair greying but still a hint of that haphazard Crowded House quiff, a…

Everybody Wants a Piece of You

Everybody Wants a Piece of You

“New Zealand has given us plenty of stuff. Russell Crowe, Crowded House, Maori bouncers who scare the crap out of you. They can have it all back if they will only let us have…

Crowded post

Crowded post

Aussie(?) pop heroes Crowded House to feature on Australian Post stamps.

Kiwi Professor of Pop Crafts Summer Sounds from Nashville

Kiwi Professor of Pop Crafts Summer Sounds from Nashville

“If there were advanced academic degrees for pop music, songwriter Tim Finn would have achieved professor emeritus status long ago. This Split Enz and Crowded House alum is a craftsman of the first order….