Top Artists – Crowded House

Crowded House – Crowded House – What To Listen For

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Number one: Too many instruments jammed into too little space in the upper midrange. When the tonality is shifted-up, even slightly, or there is too much compression, there will be too many elements — voices, guitars, drums — vying for space in the upper area of the midrange, causing congestion and a loss of clarity. This is especially noticeable on the second track of side one, Now We’re Getting Somewhere.

With the more solid sounding copies, the lower mids are full and rich; above them, the next “level up” so to speak, there’s plenty of space in which to fit all the instruments comfortably, not piling them one on top of another as is so often the case; consequently, the upper midrange area does not get stuffed and overwhelmed with musical information. (more…)

Crowded House – Temple of Low Men

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Temple of Low Men

A distinguished member of the Better Records Rock and Pop Hall of Fame.

This British import pressing came right out of my collection. I would love to be able to keep an album as good as this one in my collection, but when would I ever find time to play it? Those days are gone. We play records all day long, five days a week. Weekends we do other things now.

Both sides are smooth and very analog sounding, and both are quiet, The big sound of a Tchad Blake recording with a Bob Clearmountain mix.

Musically both sides have some of the band’s best material. A few of our favorite tracks would be: I Feel Possessed and Into Temptation on side one, Love This Life and Better Be Home Soon on side two. (more…)

Crowded House – Woodface – Our Shootout Winner from 2008

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A distinguished member of the Better Records Rock and Pop Hall of Fame.

This WHITE HOT STAMPER Woodface fulfills the promise of this extraordinarily well-recorded album beyond all expectations. We have an expression that we reserve for this kind of record — Master Tape Sound. When you drop the needle on a record this good you feel like you just threaded up the master tape and hit play. The effect so totally immerses you in the musical experience that you forget you’re listening to a record at all.

In your mind you have the sense that you’re hearing the music exactly the way the musicians, producers and engineers intended it to sound. It’s perfection. The sound is everything you want it to be as you experience every element of the music seemingly without limitation. It only happens when the right record meets the right stereo, and that means rarely, but when it does the memory of the sound becomes fixed in the mind like no other, and it never leaves. (more…)

Crowded House – Crowded House

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A distinguished member of the Better Records Rock and Pop Hall of Fame.

This original domestic pressing offers killer Hot Stamper sound for both sides of Crowded House’s wonderful debut.

Musically side one is absolutely brilliant from first note to last. Crowded House may have wanted to be the New Beatles, but those are some pretty big shoes to fill. They fell a bit short — who can compete with The Beatles? — but in their heyday, 1985-1993, they were better at making intelligent, original, melody-driven pop than practically any other group I was listening to. If you like the Art Rock of the ’70s, this album shows that smart, adult rock music could still be made a decade or more later. (more…)

Crowded House – Woodface

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This killer original British import copy of Woodface boasts nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A++) sound from start to finish
Thankfully the care and effort that went into every aspect of the production of Woodface more than justifies the effort we put into finding this copy
Some of the most original, melodic, hook-laden, sophisticated popular music recorded in the last twenty seven years
“The songs are easily their finest to date, combining flawless melodies and the outstanding harmonies of the brothers’ perfectly matched voices.” – All Music

This excellent copy of Woodface fulfills the promise of this extraordinarily well-recorded album beyond all expectations. The effect so totally immerses you in the musical experience that you forget you’re listening to a record at all. In your mind, you have the sense that you’re hearing the music exactly the way the musicians, producers, and engineers intended it to sound. The sound is everything you want it to be as you experience every element of the music without limitation. (more…)

Crowded House – Woodface – A Simply Vinyl Winner

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Sonic Grade: B (or better!)

Woodface easily meets the definition of a Desert Island Disc. I’ve played it hundreds of times and enjoy it more with each play, which insures that on my desert island I’ll never get sick of it. To my way of thinking it contains some of the most original, melodic, hook-laden, sophisticated popular music recorded in the last twenty years. Astonishingly (to me, anyway) it didn’t even chart here in the states, a sad commentary about the state of the music biz, a state that only seems to worsen as the decades roll on.