Friday, June 23, 2006

Everybody wants to be Neil Finn these days.

Maybe it's me, but lately I've seemed to notice a plethora of singer/songwriters (many of whom are from Australia/New Zealand, but Britain will suffice) that sound like Neil Finn clones. Now mind you, that's not a bad thing - Finn has a great sound, and many of these acolytes have released very good to outsanding discs. Previously, I've noted David William and Fran King, and here are three more that I've come across recently.

First off, there's Aussie Shane Nicholson, who's probably the most Finn-sounding of the batch. His 2003 release, It's a Movie, has the sound down to a science, complete with the slightly nasal vocal style of Finn. Tracks like "The Best Day of the Year" and "It's a Movie" could have been easily slipped into a Finn release and nobody would have noticed. Well, he has a new one out called "Faith and Science". The new one is more of the same, only different - in certain places, Nicholson rocks out a bit more. Sample it here. It hasn't been officially released in the USA, but can be found as an import here.

Next up is another Aussie, Russell Crawford, who just released an EP titled Hearing All That's Heard which was featured on Not Lame recently. The EP is produced by Michael Carpenter, a sure sign of quality, and quality it is. And it sounds more like Finn than Carpenter, and in places is reminiscent of James Cooper's Second Season, another Carpenter production. Check out samples at the Not Lame link.

Finally, we have another release from Down Under: Tim Reid's Any Given Day. A bit more of a mellower affair than the other two (relatively speaking), it's still another batch of quality Finnpop (there's my new term). Get yr samples from CD Baby.

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