This came out in 2000 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Post-breakup collections like this can be big letdowns — as often as not, the so-called “rarities and unreleased treasures” turn out to be a bunch of half-finished studio noodlings, unremarkable covers, bootleg quality live tracks and B-sides that never deserved to be A-sides.
Not so with this sterling set from New Zealand pop craftsmen Neil Finn and Crowded House. The 13 tracks on Afterglow were culled from every phase of the trio’s career, from their mid-’80s beginnings as a quartet to their final session a decade later. And each of them — the intimate sincerity of I Love You Dawn, Finn’s ballad to his wife; the silly pop novelty of My Telly’s Gone Bung; even the quirky Lester, an ode to an injured dog — has the same breezy jangle and Beatlesque pop appeal that turned songs like Something So Strong into worldwide hits. A great encore for a band that quit the scene too soon.