Crowded House Share 'Oh Hi' Video and Announce New Album

02-16-2024

(fcc) Crowded House announced today their upcoming new album Gravity Stairs which will be released globally May 31 on BMG. The announcement comes one week after Crowded House dropped new track "Oh Hi" as the surprise first single off the band's upcoming 8th studio album. Today, Crowded House released the official music video for "Oh Hi".

BrooklynVegan called "Oh Hi" "buoyant, lush and sunny with one of Neil Finn's classic melodies and lots of harmony." The song has a deep connection to Finn's support for So They Can, an international nonprofit focused on building schools in remote parts of Kenya and Tanzania. "I'm hoping the song comes across without needing to know the backstory," Finn says, "but it's very much inspired by these incredible kids and their magnificence."

Gravity Stairs is Crowded House's first new release since 2021's Dreamers Are Waiting and eighth overall. Produced by the band with Steven Schram, the album shows Crowded House in its current incarnation - Finn, Nick Seymour, Mitchell Froom, and Finn's sons Elroy and Liam - as sharp as ever, feeling musically adventurous, and still capable of reaching the staggering highs that have made them an international favorite. It's the act of climbing those figurative "gravity stairs," inspired by a heavy stone staircase near where Finn vacations, that he likens to his own mindset as a creator.

"It's a metaphor for getting a little older and becoming aware of your own mortality, your own physicality," Finn says. "Things are getting a little harder, and there's more determination needed to get to the top, but there's still the same compulsion to climb them."

Featuring 11 new songs, the album showcases the band's musical evolution and commitment to delivering thought-provoking and inspiring sounds that resonate with fans old and new.

Gravity Stairs Tracklist:
1. Magic Piano
2. Life's Imitation
3. The Howl
4. All That I Can Ever Own
5. Oh Hi
6. Some Greater Plan (for Claire)
7. Black Water, White Circle
8. Blurry Grass
9. I Can't Keep Up With You
10. Thirsty
11. Night Song