Neil Finn - Dizzy Heights

Neil Finn has had a pretty good run with Split Enz and Crowded House, and I loved his first solo album, an underrated gem called Try Whistling This. Somehow I missed out on his other solo work and his newer combo The Pajama Club, but I'm trying to get back with his new one, Dizzy Heights. Flying in the Face of Love has a familiar catchy chorus and bittersweet atmosphere. Title track Dizzy Heights serves up a trampoline beat, about a billion layered vocals, Halloween and mosquitos. Divebomber sees Finn sending out a delicate, claustrophobic falsetto over a buzzy bed of spiralling Stukas - here's a track you would never have recognized as coming from the Neil Finn catalogue. Divebomber reflects the hand of producer Dave Fridmann and his history with The Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev.

You can stream the album here.


Flying in the Face of Love


Dizzy Heights


Divebomber


Lights of New York


Last One Standing (From Try Whistling This)


Pajama Club - Tell Me What you Want


Neil Finn and Eddie Vedder - History Never Repeats


Message to My Girl


Neil Finn - Throw Your Arms Around Me (Hunters & Collectors cover)


Neil Finn - Billie Jean (I'm not telling you who he is covering here, you should know)

R.E.M. - New Album Songbites: You're Still Full Anyway, Right?

A teaser for the new album. Brief snippets of songs usually annoy me more than anything (I wanna hear full tunes, not thirty seconds!), but these have only served to intrigue me further. I got the impression some people thought R.E.M. dumbed it down with songs like Supernatural Superserious on the last record, or perhaps were forcing it a little bit. I think those complaints should be quietened with this one.



It Happened Today (Featuring Eddie Vedder) is one of those cameos I was talking about last post, and I can barely hear Eddie at all, so maybe my worries were unfounded. So far, the song sounds okay, R.E.M.'s always been good at those wordless choruses (such as Belong from Out of Time), seems to me it might be a grower.

R.E.M. - It Happened Today (Feat. Eddie Vedder) by weallwantsome1



If you haven't heard the first single, here it is, Discoverer:

R.E.M. - Discoverer by abrecaminos

An unusual cover of an unusual R.E.M. song to cover.

Lotus (r.e.m. cover) by tinyblueboxes