STACK #146 Dec 2016

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greatest hits compilations, the Crowdies' prodigious leader has always been an old-school believer in the integrity of the unexpurgated vinyl statement: nothing less than a two- part manifestation of "divine symmetry", he opined while launching his latest solo album in 2014. "In the same way a three- minute pop song is a good amount of time to lose yourself in something wondrous, a 40-minute experience is a really nice amount of time to exercise your brain in a different way," he suggested. So slip your grey matter into a sleek lycra ensemble for the less travelled disco byways of Can't Carry On and Tombstone . Make your angsty bed on the psychologist's couch of Kill Eye and Mansion In The Slums . Go straight to Hell with a sausage dog in the playful amble of There Goes God and recline with the sadly missed Paul Hester on Italian Plastic . Then howl at the Kare Kare moon with Black And White Boy and tickle those hard-to-reach muscles with Fingers Of Love . The bonus round from the band's first rush is Afterglow , the swag of unreleased gems that bounces between the unabashed romance of I Love You Dawn to a seriously spooky thrum through a nylon-strings-and-harmony take of Private Universe . Oh yeah, and no fan of this band's surreal cartoon aesthetic will need to be reminded that there's only one way to appreciate Nick Seymour's darkly sumptuous cover art. Hint: it's not in a fiddly little 12cm booklet suitable for losing under the coach. ALSO AVAILABLE: The post- Hester reunion albums Time On Earth and Intriguer .

CROWDED HOUSE As the seminal rock group conclude their epic Opera House shows and find themselves inducted into the ARIA Hall Of Fame, Michael Dwyer looks over the recent vinyl reissues of Crowded House: Crowded House ('86) , Temple Of Low Men ('88) , Woodface ('91) , Together Alone ('93) , and Afterglow ('99) .

N eil Finn never made a soundtrack of the times" has been the drug since he scored I Got You , his first hit with Split Enz back in '79. With Don't Dream It's Over he reached a higher stratosphere with a phenomenon he later called "the song that empathises", an anthem for the united states of tingling scalp and wistful sigh. Sure enough, flipping through the original four Crowded House LPs of '87 to '94, it's hard to think secret of his smash single aspirations. Nailing "the

Woodface is just rude, with Chocolate Cake , Fall At Your Feet , It's Only Natural , Weather With You and Four Seasons In One Day lined up on the A side like there's no Plan B. Even sinking in faraway beach sand and psychedelics, Together Alone manages to lasso seven singles, from the raucous Locked Out to the trippy Pineapple Head to the sublime Private Universe – with the blissful Distant Sun still to come. But for all the inevitable

of another pop act of the last 30 years with a greater hits-per-side ratio. Between Mean To Me and Don’t Dream , the self-titled debut goes four singles deep, as men with deep voices and runny noses used to say in FM programmers' meetings, before drawing breath. Temple Of Low Men boasts a classic radio tune literally every second track – three per side in the old money – from I Feel Possessed to Into Temptation to Sister Madly and Better Be Home Soon .

(Universal)

Crowded House 1986

Temple Of Low Men 1988

Woodface 1991

Together Alone 1993

Afterglow 1999

DECEMBER 2016

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