antipopper

Split Enz were titans in Australasia, but never became a world-conquering force. It’s a pity. Setting aside the obvious explanation of “they looked silly!”, perhaps there were too many tangents for them to remain focused, with a total of three singers/songwriters — two at any one time. In the Britpop years I was happy to discover that Tim Finn’s pole of Split Enz had clearly influenced Blur at their best, but Noel Gallagher weirdly chose the wrong stream, taking Neil Finn’s later, better-known work with Crowded House as a template for his lamest Oasis material.

For those unfamiliar with this stuff, here are my favourite (and very obvious) hits of New Zealand’s golden age of New Wave pop: Split Enz’s “Poor Boy” and “Six Months in a Leaky Boat“, plus the perennially bouncy “Counting the Beat” from original Enz frontman Phil Judd’s one hit wonder outfit, The Swingers.