Neil Finn - The Second Disc

The Weekend Stream: May 31, 2025

May 31, 2025 by The Second Disc | 6 Comments

Welcome to another edition of The Weekend Stream, The Second Disc’s review of notable catalogue titles (and some new ones, too!) making digital debuts. We’ve got solo appearances aplenty: Bono, Al Jardine, Grace Potter, John Fogerty, and more new/old music – plus a new subscription service from Crowded House, a Barry Manilow music video, and a tribute to one of the undisputed guitar gods of his generation. Bono, Stories of Surrender EP (Island/Interscope/UMe) (Apple / Amazon) In 2023, U2 frontman Bono embarked on his first ever solo tour, promoting the memoir Surrender: 40 Songs, One…

Categories:

The Weekend Stream

Formats:

Digital Download, Digital Streaming

Genres:

Cast Recordings, Classic Rock, Country, Disco/Dance, Folk, Pop, R&B/Soul, Rock, Soundtracks

The Weekend Stream Extra: A Guide to ‘MTV Unplugged’ on Paramount+ (Part 1)

May 18, 2025 by Mike Duquette | 9 Comments

Welcome to a special Sunday feature of The Weekend Stream, which takes a look at one of MTV’s great live music programs thanks to a recent reissue of one of its best-known episodes. We’re kicking off a five-part deep-dive on every episode of MTV Unplugged that’s currently streaming on the station’s parent streaming network Paramount+! If the music video was the most significant concept MTV introduced back in 1981, the word “unplugged” might come in a close second. In 1989, as the cable station began slowly diversifying their blocks of video programming –…

Categories:

The Weekend Stream

Formats:

CD, DVD, Digital Download, Digital Streaming

Genres:

Blues, Classic Rock, Folk, Pop, Rock

Tags:

Aerosmith, Crowded House, Daryl Hall and John Oates, Elton John, Elvis Costello, Graham Parker, Neil Finn, Neil Young, Paul McCartney, Sinead O'Connor, Sting, The Allman Brothers Band, The Beatles, The Church, The Police, The Smithereens, Tim Finn

The Weekend Stream: April 19, 2025

April 19, 2025 by The Second Disc | 6 Comments

Welcome to another edition of The Weekend Stream, The Second Disc’s review of notable catalogue titles (and some new ones, too!) making digital debuts. We’re pleased to kick things off with another four Record Store Day titles making their way to stream and download, followed by a classic, underrated R&B work and some new music we’re digging today, as well. Neil Finn, Sessions At West 54th (Epic/Legacy) (Apple / Amazon) Well, that’s Mike’s Record Store Day sorted! This indelible live set from the Crowded House frontman – taped as part of PBS’ Sessions At…

Categories:

The Weekend Stream

Formats:

Digital Download, Digital Streaming

Genres:

Classic Rock, Pop, R&B/Soul, Rock

Tags:

Boomtown Rats, Bruce Springsteen, Crowded House, Donny Hathaway, Neil Finn, Nino Tempo, Shudder to Think, Thompson Twins

The Second Disc’s Guide to Record Store Day 2025: Our Favorite Picks

April 11, 2025 by The Second Disc | 1 Comment

Tomorrow, Record Store Day is once again upon us! It’s that time of year where music lovers and vinyl flippers get together at their favorite physical music retailers and wait in line to snag some treasured albums – almost all of which are pressed on vinyl instead of CD (or, you know, sold on secondary marketplaces for above their retail value). This year, the list tops out at over 300 titles, so there’s very nearly something for everybody. It wasn’t easy to narrow our choices down to around 20 titles, but here…

Categories:

News

Formats:

CD, Vinyl

Genres:

Classic Rock, Folk, Jazz, Pop, R&B/Soul, Rock, Soundtracks

They Will Have Their Way: Legacy Plans Packed Record Store Day Slate

February 10, 2025 by Mike Duquette | 8 Comments

Is it just us, or has Record Store Day felt a little muted in recent years? Obviously the annual Black Friday celebration boasts less titles than the festivities held every April, but it’s sometimes been a struggle to identify great archival titles or worthy re-pressed discs. Well, that certainly isn’t the case this year: labels seem to have gone into overdrive stockpiling interesting LPs and singles worth a second (or first!) look – and one of the strongest showings might be Sony Music’s Legacy Recordings, who are bowing no less than 16…

Categories:

News

Formats:

Vinyl

Genres:

Classic Rock, Everything Else, Jazz, Pop, R&B/Soul, Rap/Hip-Hop, Rock, Soundtracks

Tags:

Cypress Hill, David Gilmour, Jeff Buckley, John Legend, Judas Priest, Lou Reed, Neil Finn, Nick Mason, Oasis, Pink Floyd, Prince, Rage Against the Machine, Record Store Day, Soul Asylum, Thelonious Monk, Toad the Wet Sprocket

Give It a Whirl: Rubellan Plans CD Debut of Rare U.S. Pressing of Split Enz’s ‘Frenzy’

July 17, 2024 by Mike Duquette | 8 Comments

Not long after Neil Finn suggested that Split Enz’s catalogue affairs could be shaping up in the year to come, a very welcome CD premiere has been announced by Rubellan Remasters. They’ll release the U.S. version of the New Zealand group’s fourth album, Frenzy. The Enz recorded Frenzy with the core line-up that appeared on 1977’s Dizrythmia: founding members Tim Finn on vocals, keyboardist Eddie Rayner and Noel Crombie on percussion, along with bassist Nigel Griggs, drummer Malcolm Green and Tim’s younger brother Neil, an additional guitarist who would earn his first songwriting credits…

Categories:

News

Formats:

Genres:

Pop, Rock

Tags:

Neil Finn, Split Enz, Tim Finn

Back Tracks: Split Enz

June 3, 2024 by Mike Duquette | 4 Comments

It’s always a good time when Neil Finn has something to say. The legendary New Zealand singer-songwriter has been making the rounds promoting Gravity Stairs, the newly released album from Crowded House – and in an hourlong chat with countryman Zane Lowe for Apple Music, he said some exciting things for fans of Finn’s first band Split Enz, which he was a part of with his older brother Tim. “There’s various things happening with Split Enz at the moment, which I’m really happy about,” he revealed. “We’ve finally found somebody that has got…

Categories:

Features

Formats:

Box Sets, CD, Digital Download, Digital Streaming

Genres:

Pop, Rock

Tags:

Neil Finn, Split Enz, Tim Finn

Suffer Never: Finn Brothers’ Debut Album Set for Expanded Vinyl Package (UPDATED 8/21/2023)

August 21, 2023 by Mike Duquette | 3 Comments

UPDATE (8/21/2022): More than a year after its release, fans’ patience has paid off with a CD version of this title available through Needle Mythology. Orders (including vinyl and t-shirt merch bundles) will be shipped with a free enamel badge of the album’s cover art and are expected to ship around October 20. ORIGINAL POST (6/1/2022): Two of the best-loved songwriters of the Antipodes are celebrating their brotherly partnership in a new deluxe vinyl package. Finn, the first album credited to the Finn Brothers, will debut on vinyl this summer as part…

Categories:

News

Formats:

CD, Vinyl

Genres:

Pop, Rock

Tags:

Crowded House, Neil Finn, The Finn Brothers, Tim Finn

Suffer Never: Finn Brothers’ Debut Album Set for Expanded Vinyl Package

June 1, 2022 by Mike Duquette | 2 Comments

Two of the best-loved songwriters of the Antipodes are celebrating their brotherly partnership in a new deluxe vinyl package. Finn, the first album credited to the Finn Brothers, will debut on vinyl this summer as part of a double LP that also includes Neil and Tim Finn’s extraordinary demos from 1989 – which birthed another classic album from the duo. At the time Finn was released in 1995, Tim was enjoying some of the biggest success of his solo career with 1993’s Before & After and the minor chart hit “Persuasion.” Neil,…

Categories:

News

Formats:

Vinyl

Genres:

Pop, Rock

Tags:

Crowded House, Neil Finn, Tim Finn

The Weekend Stream: January 8, 2022

January 8, 2022 by Mike Duquette | No Comments

Welcome to The Weekend Stream, a relaxing weekly review of notable digital-only catalogue titles. There may be no CD or vinyl, but there’s plenty of great new/old music to discover! Our first release weekend of 2022 features heavy hitters, from legends of pop, rock, jazz and…space disco? David Bowie, Shadow Man (Parlophone) (Amazon / Spotify) David Bowie would have turned 75 today, and fans are celebrating over the new release Toy:Box, an official and expanded version of his “lost” 2001 album featuring new interpretations of his earliest ’60s material. But there’s a…

Categories:

Features, The Weekend Stream

Formats:

Digital Download, Digital Streaming

Genres:

Classic Rock, Disco/Dance, Everything Else, Pop, Popular Standards/Vocal, R&B/Soul, Rock, Soundtracks

Tags:

Crowded House, David Bowie, Ella Fitzgerald, Meco, Neil Finn

Split Enz’s ‘True Colours’ Shine Bright On New Reissue

June 16, 2020 by The Second Disc | 9 Comments

The album that introduced most of the world to New Zealand pop band Split Enz, True Colours is getting a new mix and expanded reissue for its 40th anniversary. The album now features a brand-new mix of the record by Enz keyboardist Eddie Rayner, who’s often overseen the sonic quality of the band’s catalogue. “I have both the original stereo masters from the 1979 mixing sessions, and the versions currently held in repositories such as Spotify…and they are radically different, sonically,” Rayner said in a statement. “The original masters are mixed, but unmastered,…

Categories:

News

Formats:

CD, Vinyl

Genres:

Classic Rock, Pop, Rock

Tags:

Crowded House, Neil Finn, Split Enz, Tim Finn

Love You ‘Til the Day I Die: Crowded House, 2016’s Reissues of the Year

January 3, 2017 by Mike Duquette | 11 Comments

Yesterday, we announced the recipients of the Seventh Annual Gold Bonus Disc Awards! Unsurprisingly, the deluxe reissues from Crowded House were among them! Today, Mike takes an in-depth look at these stellar reissues! Depending on how you look at it, there are anywhere from seven (albums) to 14 (discs) to more than 200 (songs) reasons why Universal Music’s Crowded House reissues stand tall in this writer’s mind as the best catalog music campaign of 2016. But in the end, all it took was one. Close your eyes for a moment. Breathe in…

Categories:

Reviews

Formats:

Box Sets, CD, Vinyl

Genres:

Pop

Tags:

Crowded House, Neil Finn

Now We’re Getting Somewhere: An Interview with Neil Finn of Crowded House

November 3, 2016 by Mike Duquette | 2 Comments

Hey now, hey now…Here at Second Disc HQ, we’re bursting with pride to share with you this very special interview conducted by our very own Mike Duquette! Crowded House founder Neil Finn reflected at length with Mike about his band, his career, legacy, and the series of truly lavish Crowded House reissues hitting stores on November 11. We know you’ll enjoy this one! Take it away, Mike… There are certain songwriters who’ve mastered certain places in their compositions. Think of, say, Lou Reed, and you’ve got witty urban decay, personified. Conjure up some songs…

Categories:

Features, Interviews

Formats:

Box Sets, CD, Digital Download, Vinyl

Genres:

Pop, Rock

Tags:

Crowded House, Neil Finn

Hey Now: Crowded House’s Catalogue Expanded for 30th Anniversary

September 19, 2016 by Mike Duquette | 7 Comments

Ahead of their induction to the Australia Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame this fall–and 30 years after the release of their first of many stellar albums–Crowded House have unveiled a spectacular and thorough reissue campaign that sees the reissue of all of their albums as expanded CDs and heavyweight vinyl titles. The project, which covers every one of their studio albums release between 1986 and 2010 (plus 2000’s rarities album Afterglow), sees each album digitally remastered at Abbey Road Studios from the highest-possible resolution transfers of the original tapes. Each…

Categories:

News

Formats:

Box Sets, CD, Vinyl

Genres:

Pop

Tags:

Crowded House, Neil Finn

Release Round-Up: Week of December 11

December 11, 2015 by Joe Marchese | 1 Comment

This week’s Release Round-Up is slimmer than most of late, but still filled with some ideal stocking stuffers… Joe Cocker, The Life of a Man: Ultimate Hits 1968-2013 (UMe) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon Canada) UMe celebrates the life and career of the late, great Joe Cocker with this new 3-CD, 36-track anthology with greatest hits and deeper cuts including a live version of “With a Little Help from My Friends” never before released in the United States. This set was previously released in the U.K. by Sony. Miles Davis, The Last Word…

Categories:

Release Round-Up

Formats:

Box Sets, CD, Digital Download

Genres:

Classic Rock, Folk, Jazz, Pop, R&B/Soul

Tags:

Alice Cooper, Brian Hyland, Joe Cocker, Judy Collins, Marty Balin, Miles Davis, Neil Finn, Paul Kelly, Roger Atkins, Rumer

Thank You Friends: Omnivore Offers Big Star, Neil Finn and Paul Kelly For Record Store Day Black Friday

October 20, 2015 by Joe Marchese | 3 Comments

Omnivore Recordings is looking ahead to this year’s annual Black Friday Record Store Day event on Friday, November 27, with the announcement of two special vinyl releases. The first continues in the tradition of Omnivore’s Big Star releases. The RSD 10-inch EP of Jesus Christ features the original album version of the song recorded for the band’s Third plus the demo version (which first appeared on the acclaimed Keep an Eye on the Sky box set) and five previously unissued tracks, for a total of seven cuts on the EP. “Another Time…

Categories:

News

Formats:

CD, Digital Download, Vinyl

Genres:

Pop, Rock

Tags:

Big Star, Neil Finn, Paul Kelly, Record Store Day