CROWDED HOUSE Vinyl Records and CDs

Crowded House combined a serious Beatles fixation with a strong sense of Catholic guilt to make the best guitar pop of the late 1980s and early '90s. Singer and chief songwriter Neil Finn was a one-man Lennon/McCartney, combining beautiful melodies, bright hooks, and multilayered production with often surreal lyrics that were oddly innocent or sweetly cynical. Brilliant live performers (CH were exceptional comedic improvisers, kind of like the Monkees recast as Monty Python), their first album was their only U.S. hit, but 1991's Woodface made them as big in Europe as they were all along Down Under. While such lyrics as "the excess of fat on your American bones will cushion the impact as you sink like a stone" didn't endear them to the incoming Grunge generation, their music has held up over the years. Neil Finn has gone on to an equally rewarding solo career.