Ah, Split Enz - the new wave band who introduced the world to Tim's little brother Neil.
Thank you, good night. Don't forget to tip your server on the way out.
But seriously folks, Split Enz.
Back in 1980 Split Enz was riding the crest of the first wave of new wave (it was clunky in my head too, but it is what it is). The band was creating something new and fresh and somehow still hearkened back to the roots of rock and roll. This was the album that had "Shark Attack" and the amazing "I Got You." There are others you may be partial to, but those are the songs I remember and frankly I never had any of their albums so pretty much everything is a deep cut when it comes to the band outside of the "radio" hits. Still, those two songs were indelibly marked into my musical DNA.
All I knew about the band was they were from New Zealand, and that they'd been around a while before becoming an overnight success. "Wait a second, then how come you're claiming such affinity to a couple of their songs if you couldn't even be bothered to buy an album?" Fair point. I'll counter that with a memory from nine year old me, when I was hiking in the back country with my dad and uncle, and I was scurrying up the side of a trail bellowing at the top of my lungs "I'm on the top of the world looking down on creation!" Yeah, I liked The Carpenters. They were a guilty pleasure along with The Osmonds whenever they were on TV and The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour ...the goop that makes up my DNA is a little soupy.
Anyway, I've totally forgotten what I was going to say. I'll have to get up and start the record again. Speaking of the record, this is the one that was laser etched. My goodness that's cool. The cover came in several colours, when I found this there were a couple other copies, but I opted for this one. It had the cleaner looking vinyl, and I don't think me swapping covers would have been a cool thing to do.
Now I'll admit that over the years I've become a little more familiar with the band, but outside of a greatest hits package didn't have any of the albums. However when it came to Neil and Tim I have all the Crowded House albums, and Neil's solo work, which was often a little disappointing, and quite a few of Tim's that were a surprise (in a good way) and a few of those were delightful surprises.
Going backward to 1980 feels a little like cheating as I'm listening with over forty years of other baggage I've packed over the years. For me the results as they say will vary, but there are a lot of really good songs here. I was more curious about the deeper cuts, which was pretty much everything on the album, and frankly this was surprisingly good. Outside of the new wave and theatrical side of the band, Tim would pull off a song like "I Hope I Never" that felt ambitious and almost over the top in terms of it's earnestness.
The album has aged really well and the songs still have an edge and a sparkle, and considering this was the band's sixth album it showcases a band who had honed their craft and threw trial and error figured out what would stick to the wall. It's always fun digging up older releases and finding that huge albums were only huge in certain markets. I always thought this was a big album, and it was here in Canada, and Australia where the album would sell almost half a million copies in two relatively small markets.
The draw to me initially was being able to get to Neil's sweet songs, but it was the realization that there was so much more was a wonderful revelation. I suppose those are the band's True Colours.
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