Before There Was Crowded House, There Was Split Enz: Box Set Review
by Jeff Burger
Neil Finn’s Crowded House wasn’t the first New Zealand band to make a mark beyond the southern hemisphere. That distinction goes to the experimental art-rock group Split Enz, which Neil’s older brother, Tim, and fellow songwriter Phil Judd formed in 1972. The group, which experienced numerous personnel and stylistic changes over the years, broke up in 1984, though a few reunions have since occurred.
Split Enz scored several #1 albums Down Under and had some success in Canada and Europe, but never garnered much attention in the U.S. Their best showing here came in 1980, with an album called True Colours (#40 in Billboard) and a catchy single that it spawned, “I Got You” (#53). By then, the group had shed most of its eccentricities, added Neil Finn to the lineup and begun delivering tightly constructed rockers that were more conventional and accessible than its 1970s work.
If you’re up for something quirkier and more adventurous, you’ll want to focus instead on those early recordings, which are the subject of a new five-CD box called ENZyclopedia Vols. 1 & 2. Its material—which draws on prog-rock and new wave and at times recalls contemporaneous work by British rock groups like Nektar and Genesis—is complex, challenging and decidedly uncommercial. These songs can be histrionic, pretentious and, occasionally, just plain weird. (The same goes for Split Enz’s members’ costumes and hairstyles.) But at its best, such as on the dreamy “Late Last Night” and the sax-spiced “The Woman Who Loves You,” the band proved capable of excellence.
As this anthology reminds us, it also proved susceptible to self-doubt. Not satisfied with how its Australasia-only debut album, Mental Notes, turned out in 1975, the band called a do-over. It brought in Roxy Music’s Phil Manzanera as producer, reworked the record’s cover art and rerecorded four of its songs. It also remade six more numbers, among them outtakes from Mental Notes and an early single, and it issued all this material in 1976 in Europe and the U.S. under the same title as the debut LP. (In Australia and New Zealand, it called the LP Second Thoughts).
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Nearly half a century later, Tim Finn, for one, remains less than fully satisfied. “The ‘real’ Mental Notes is still hovering somewhere between two records, never to be fully realized,” he writes in the oversized 40-page booklet that comes with the box. “However, nowadays, I can hear beauty in the flaws.”
He evidently also still hears potential for improvement, because the new compendium includes a remix of Second Thoughts by Eddie Raynor, who played keyboards in the band from 1974 to 1984. (Perhaps they should have called this version Third Thoughts.) Also featured are 2025 remasters of the original Mental Notes and Second Thoughts and two discs’ worth of rare tracks, live cuts and early singles, most of which have been remixed by Raynor. If this isn’t enough for you, you can pick up a limited-edition Blu-ray, sold separately, that contains a hi-res copy of the original Mental Notes, four mixes of Second Thoughts, including Dolby Atmos and 5.1, and music videos for three of that album’s tracks.
It all adds up to a slightly bumpy ride, but one that packs in some thrills along the way.
The collection, released on Nov. 14, 2025, is available in the U.S./worldwide here, in Canada here and in the U.K. here.
Burger wrote one of the first interview-based profiles of Bruce Springsteen to be published in a national magazine. He has interviewed many other music-world luminaries as well, including Steve Van Zandt, Roger McGuinn, John Sebastian, Wolfman Jack, Tom Waits, Foreigner’s Mick Jones, Billy Joel, Steve Forbert, Tommy James, the Righteous Brothers, Gordon Lightfoot, Deep Purple’s Tommy Bolin, and members of Steely Dan and the Marshall Tucker Band. He has also interviewed many other public figures, such as Suze Orman, Daymond John, James Carville, Donald Trump, Sir Richard Branson, F. Lee Bailey, and Cliff Robertson.
His books include Dylan on Dylan: Interviews and Encounters, Lennon on Lennon: Conversations with John Lennon, Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen: Interviews and Encounters, and Springsteen on Springsteen: Interviews, Speeches, and Encounters, all of which are published in the U.S. and Canada by Chicago Review Press. The books have been republished in numerous other countries.
Burger has been the editor of several periodicals, including Business Jet Traveler, from which he retired in 2024. During his 20 years at that
publication, it received more than 120 major editorial awards, including multiple wins for the world’s Best Consumer Travel Magazine in the annual Folio:Eddie competition.
Burger lives in Ridgewood, New Jersey. His wife, Madeleine Beresford, is a puppeteer and former preschool director and teacher. The couple have two grown children.
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