Mental Notes (Split Enz album)


Mental Notes is the 1975 debut album by New Zealand art rock band Split Enz. The album cover was painted by band member Phil Judd. Original vinyl copies featured Judd saying "Make a mental note" in the runout groove of the record's second side, causing the phrase to be looped ad infinitum on manual turntables until the stylus is removed.

Recording

Chunn later complained about the "totally unsympathetic treatment we'd had when we were recording in Australia. The engineer in Sydney thought we couldn't tune our guitars and that we were unprofessional and he just showed total disinterest right through."

Track listing

* These songs were re-recorded for the Second Thoughts album.
† This version has Phil Judd singing lead vocals. An earlier version recorded in 1974 has Tim Finn singing lead.

Personnel

Split Enz

The album was a moderate success on its release in July 1975. It sold 12,000 copies in Australia, reached #35 on the album chart for one week, and peaked at #7 in New Zealand. Much of the material derived from Tim Finn's and Phil Judd's fascination with the work of the renowned English writer and artist Mervyn Peake – notably Spellbound, the epic track Stranger Than Fiction and Titus, named after the hero of Peake's Gormenghast trilogy.