Customer Reviews

Second Thoughts

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you have the original CD of this, you need to upgrade. The sound is sooo much better on this and Dizrythmia. The instruments are clearly defined, the vocals are right up front, and the overall balanced sound makes for one of the most improved remasters I have heard. As for the uninitiated, this is a brilliant album full of humor, great hooks and excellent vocals. This, along with Dizrythmia (their follow up album) are two of my favorites. Later, Split Enz were to strip down their act and get more in line with the 80's pop bands, but these early works are timeless.

I love Split Enz, but if you have Mental Notes, Beginning of the Enz, and their greatest hits you need not get this album unless you are a completist. Most of this is somewhat interesting (but inferior across the board to my mind) re-recordings of songs on Mental Notes and Beginning...

"Sweet Dreams" is an outstanding, touching song, and only appears here and on their greatest. "Late Last Night" also appears on their greatest. This version of "Titus" is on par with the original. "Lovey Dovey" has some cool twists on the original, but is too frenetic. "Woman Who Loves You" appears nowhere else (with its spoon solo to boot). The other four songs are wholly inferior to their Mental Notes/Beginning... versions, I think.

Whereas the originals had a rootsy, jazzy feel to them, these are like processed versions, specially made to bring out the silliness at the expense of deeper feelings.

I have been waiting quietly for re masters of the Early Split Enz Catalogue. Let me say it has been worth the wait....

I first heard this album in 1977 after i had bought Dizrythmia & loved it. Hmmm i thought what else have these talented boys made.

I was pleasantly suprised by the Genius work, although on first listen you may not be sold, but after subsequent listens the different melodies & arrangements will hit you & never quite leave you ever again.

The remastering by Eddie Raynor is truly magnificent. The original disctronics CD's i had sounded like they were burnt of a vinyl master-particulairly as tracks 5 & 10 sounded compressed & distorted, but Now the album sounds like it is being played through the Studio Monitors of the Control room. The music now jumps out of the speakers the way it always should have

Buy the Remasters & enjoy. Thanks Eddie love ya work

i loved this band's first album, mental notes, for many years before acquiring this altered version, which i consider an unabashed sellout of the original. First of all, they watered down their sound with the commercial gimmick of a recurring alto (maybe tenor, i don't know) saxophone (sometimes replacing my favorite guitar solos!). Then they made the drumming solid instead of shaky and lovable, and they changed the mood of the whole thing a lot, leaning more heavily on what were probably the most exciting numbers to do live. so instead of a totally bohemian trip, this album sounds like a bunch of brilliant freaks dressing up and stepping out into the spotlight of a dance-hall cabaret at a high falutin' carnival of some kind. an extroverted album. incredibly detailed and exuberant, delivered with a classically trained eloquence, just not emotionally powerful like its predecessor. but i recommend both to all fun loving people with dark misgivings about reality. in fact, i would start with this one and move on to Mental Notes if you find "titus" and "time for a change" to be particularly compelling.

If you have heard this CD and thought it was great get 'Mental Notes' and be blown away. This CD has many of the songs from the first recorded but cleaned up a bit. That was a mistake. The rawness of the sound from the first CD was brilliant. Plus they miss some of the great epic songs (sound poems) of Mr Judd.

This is Split Enz second album the reason that a lot of the songs from Mental Notes appear on this release is that after Mental Notes was released Phil Manzanera from Roxy Music took some interest in the band and produced this album thus re-recording some of his favourite songs from Mental Notes.

I'm a bit confused with the titles of these CD's. My introduction to Split Enz was in 1976 with the purchase of Mental Notes, on Chrysalis Records, CHR 1131. The track listing on my LP is exactly the same as this CD, but with the addition of Mental Notes at the end of side 2, a bizarre 30 second long vocals/guitar ditty.

Fantastic record! At a time when prog rock was running out of steam and punk had yet to hit the scene, Mental Notes was fresh, exciting, and unique. It still is and holds up under repeated listening. One of my favorites from 1976.

England was the country where Tim Finn believed Split Enz were going to set the music world on fire. After a short detour to Australia (a "stepping stone" as Finn called it), Split Enz flew into the U.K. just as the punk movement was setting in. With punk, songs were short, tuneless and loud, and it didn't matter if you couldn't play an instrument. Obviously, Split Enz were going to be the odd ones out again.

While "Second Thoughts" is Split Enz' second album, it could also be described as a second attempt. A lot of the songs on "Second Thoughts" are re-recordings of songs that appeared on their first album "Mental Notes".

On this album the saxophonist Rob Gillies replaced Wally Wilkinson (who played guitar on "Mental Notes"). Wally was fired because the rest of the band wrongly believed his guitar playing on "Mental Notes" was "less than satisfactory". Also, Phil Judd was becoming more confident with the electric guitar. So Rob Gillies came into the fold. His head replaced Wally's on the U.K. cover painting of the next record.

I actually got "Second Thoughts" before "Mental Notes" (see review) and I have to say that this is the one I prefer. Somehow "Second Thoughts" seems more user friendly. Unfortunately, like "Mental Notes", "Second Thoughts" got little to no airplay. This was an understandable frustration for the band because their live shows were usually a great success. There was argument among the listeners over whether Split Enz were punk or not. Ultimately, Finn said, it was decided they weren't. Finn also said that Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious hated Split Enz.

The song I probably like best is Phil Judd's "Sweet Dreams". "Lovey Dovey" is nice and manic too. An earlier member of the band, Miles Golding, also plays violin on a couple of the tracks. "Second Thoughts" is reminiscent of the old-fashioned music hall in some ways. It would be the last album to feature Phil Judd, Mike Chunn and Paul Crowther. Thereafter, the band's music would evolve (or de-evolve?) into the commercially successful singles of the early 1980s. For me, the 1980s was when Split Enz really shone.

This is probably the best album of a band who were oh-so very good (I guess until they went a little synth crazy in the latter part of their careers.) Nevertheless, this features the Tim Finn/Phil Judd combination at its absoulute peak, with the wonderfully driving bass of J. Mike Chunn contrasting with the funky noodlings of Mr Eddie Rayner (Eddie, if you are reading this - sorry about the synth gag earlier, but did the entire budget from you last two albums go into expanding your collection of synths? It certainly sounds like it, mate! However, Enzso was cool so you are excused!!!) The tracks seem to run effortlessly in an acid-drenched carnivalesque of sounds. The great tracks of the album are too numerous to count (guess who has got a tiny bias!) 'Stranger than Fiction', 'Late Last Night', 'The Woman Who Loves You' and 'Titus' seem to have lasted the test of time to present themselves to the listener as evidence of the existance of a band who were just a little bit too good for their own good!

This was a great Split Enz album with side B being almost flawless. The follow up without Phil Judd lacked much of the uniqueness of Second Thoughts. After Split Enz split up in the late 80's Noel Crombie and Nigel Griggs joined up again with Phil Judd to form the band Schnell Fenster and they released 2 albums. The first was called "The sound of trees" and can be found quite easily but the second "OK alright uh huh oh yeah" is a much harder find. Both of these efforts are brilliant and rewards the listener who listens repeatedly. I would urge anyone who likes the Enz to search for the Schnell Fenster efforts as they are some of the best music I've ever heard.