Recurring Dream (album)
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| Recurring Dream | |||||
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| Greatest hits by Crowded House | |||||
| Released | June 1996 | ||||
| Genre | Rock, Pop | ||||
| Length | 70:09 | ||||
| Label | Capitol | ||||
| Producer | Mitchell Froom, Neil Finn and Tchad Blake | ||||
| Professional reviews | |||||
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| Crowded House chronology | |||||
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| Singles from Recurring Dream | |||||
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Recurring Dream is a compilation album by rock group Crowded House, released in 1996.[1] It includes most of their singles, as well as three new songs, "Not the Girl You Think You Are," "Instinct," and "Everything Is Good For You."
Contents |
[edit] Release
Following Crowded House's fourth album release Together Alone in 1993, the band toured internationally. During this tour, the group's founding drummer Paul Hester decided to leave the band abruptly in 1994, leaving the group to find another drummer. The group substituted with English-born Australian drummer Peter Jones. The group finished off this tour and returned to Australia where the bandleader and songwriter Neil Finn began writing songs for the group's next album, tentatively titled Help Is Coming, though after writing three songs, interrupted this to write and record a joint album with his brother Tim Finn under the title Finn.[2] Following the release of the collaboration, Finn decided to end Crowded House officially. He announced in 1996 that the group was disbanding, but would release a greatest hits collection.
The collection was released in June 1996 featuring four singles from each of the group's four albums as well as the three new songs which were intended for Help Is Coming. Hester returned to the band to play drums on the three new songs after having left the band in April 1994, however is not noted on the sleeve as a band member and does not appear on the photographs in the artwork. The album was named Recurring Dream, as a play on words and in jest towards the title of the Split Enz greatest hits album History Never Repeats, which took its title from a song Finn co-wrote. The title also comes from a song written in 1985 by Finn, Hester, Nick Seymour and the group's then guitarist Craig Hooper while the group was still known as The Mullanes. The song "Recurring Dream" was not included in this compilation because it was never released on a Crowded House studio album as it was co-written by Hooper, who left before the band released any recordings or changed its name to Crowded House. The song was later released on Afterglow, Crowded House's rarities collection.
Following the chart success of the album, Capitol Records released a special two disc version of the album. The second disc included fifteen live performances from the band's ten years of touring. The disc was compiled by bass player Nigel Griggs who previously played Bass for Split Enz and joined the gorup at the same time as Finn in 1977. Griggs wrote a brief entry which was included on the album sleeve. The special edition included two sleeves, the original sleeve for Recurring Dream and a separate sleeve for the special edition, which featured exclusive artwork (see below). The rear outer sleeve for the CD was different from the regular release as it included the tracklisting for both the regular disc as well as the live disc.
[edit] Chart performance
Recurring Dream rose to #1 in the Australian ARIA Albums Chart in June 1996 when it was released. In the following ARIA Music Awards, the group was awarded Highest Selling Album ahead of Savage Garden, which collected the vast majority of that year's other awards. The award was presented by Dave Graney who joked in his presentation speech that it's "sometimes just about the money". The album eventually reached twelve times platinum status in Australia in 2007. It performed well internationally, achieving the top spot of #1 in the UK Albums Chart in 1996 with sales in excess of 1.3 million[3], which certifed the album five times platinum there.[4] It also spent 14 weeks on the Norwegian charts with a two-week peak of #5[5] and 10 weeks in the Swiss Albums Chart with a peak of #17.[6] The album also appeared in the top 50 in the Austrian charts[7] and the Swedish charts.[8] In 2007, the album reappeared in the Australian charts in the same week that Time on Earth was released and rose in the next week to #44, which is likely to be as a result of the long gap between albums by the band and people wanting to become either familiar with the original work, or to re-familiarise themselves.[9]
| Chart | Peak position | Certification |
|---|---|---|
 Australian ARIA Albums Chart[9] |
1 | 12x Platinum |
 UK Albums Chart[3] |
1 | 5x Platinum |
 Norwegian Albums Chart[5] |
5 | |
 Swiss Albums Chart[6] |
17 | |
 Austrian Albums Chart[7] |
43 | |
 Swedish Albums Chart[8] |
43 |
[edit] Cover art
The album's cover art, alike all others by Crowded House, was designed by Nick Seymour. According to Seymour, this album cover features a painting with several elements combined from the previous album covers, including a fan and a shirtless man (from Crowded House), a red car (from Together Alone) and others.[10] The album is the first by the group to contain a leaded typeset on the outer front cover, in contrast to the group's previous albums, all of which contained highly stylised text where applicable. The text that is typeset is "The Very Best of", which leads into a stylised logo of Crowded House. This logo was replicated onto T-shirts also.[10]
[edit] Track listing
- "Weather With You" – 3:44 (Neil Finn & Tim Finn)
- "World Where You Live" – 3:05 (N. Finn)
- "Fall at Your Feet" – 3:18 (N. Finn)
- "Locked Out" – 3:18 (N. Finn)
- "Don't Dream It's Over" – 3:55 (N. Finn)
- "Into Temptation" – 4:34 (N. Finn)
- "Pineapple Head" – 3:28 (N. Finn)
- "When You Come" – 4:44 (N. Finn)
- "Private Universe" – 5:36 (N. Finn)
- "Not the Girl You Think You Are" – 4:08 ♥ (N. Finn)
- "Instinct" – 3:08 ♥ (N. Finn)
- "I Feel Possessed" – 3:48 (N. Finn)
- "Four Seasons In One Day" – 2:48 (N. Finn & T. Finn)
- "It's Only Natural" – 3:32 (N. Finn & T. Finn)
- "Distant Sun" – 3:50 (N. Finn)
- "Something So Strong" – 2:52 (N. Finn & Mitchell Froom)
- "Mean to Me" – 3:14 (N. Finn)
- "Better Be Home Soon" – 3:10 (N. Finn)
- "Everything Is Good For You" – 3:57 ♥ (N. Finn)
♥ Not available on other albums
[edit] Special Edition Live Album
| Special Edition Live Album | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Live album by Crowded House | ||
| Released | October 1996 | |
| Genre | Rock, Pop | |
| Label | Capitol | |
| Producer | Neil Finn | |
| Compiler | Nigel Griggs | |
With selected copies of Recurring Dream, a full length special edition live album of Crowded House songs was included. The songs were selected by Split Enz member Nigel Griggs who, according to the album's sleeve, relates that Finn asked him in passing if he would like to put together the selection for the live album. He advises after briefly accepting, days later, hundreds of cassettes of Crowded House performances arrived for him to make his selections. The mixes featured on the live album are not adjusted at all from the mix from the recording and nothing was adujsted in converting the music to CD so that the performances are exactly as they were originally. Only four of the songs from the live album were on Recurring Dream. This is to provide listeners a different range of Crowded House music and to allow the "fan favourites" not present on the album to be featured, such as "Sister Madly," "Hole In the River" and "Fingers of Love." Notably, five of the live album's songs are all from one concert at The Civic Theater in Newcastle, Australia. Other songs from this performance have appeared as B-Sides released by the group, including "Chocolate Cake" from the single for "Instinct".
[edit] Track listing
[edit] Notes
- ^ Crowded House members head for the door. Published by Jam Music/Canoe. Released 24 June 1996. Retrieved 5 December 2006.
- ^ HowlSpace, HowlSpace - Crowded House, retrieved 3 September 2007.
- ^ a b Sales Analysis 09/07/07. Published by Google. Retrieved 19 July 2007.
- ^ Frequently asked questions. See Platinum rules. Retrieved 19 July 2007.
- ^ a b Norweigan Charts: Recurring Dream. Retrieved 18 July 2007.
- ^ a b Swiss Charts/Hit Parade: Recurring Dream. Retrieved 18 July 2007.
- ^ a b Austrian Charts: Recurring Dream. Retrieved 18 July 2007.
- ^ a b Swedish Charts: Recurring Dream. Retrieved 18 July 2007.
- ^ a b Australian Charts: Recurring Dream. Retrieved 18 July 2007.
- ^ a b Bourke, Chris (1997). Something So Strong. Macmillan Australia.
| Preceded by Hourly, Daily by You Am I |
Australian ARIA Albums Chart number-one album July 21 - August 17, 1996 December 8, 1996 - January 18, 1997 |
Succeeded by Forgiven, Not Forgotten by The Corrs |
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