Split Enz Albums Ranked: The Complete Guide to Their Studio Discography

Few bands in Australasian music history have undergone a transformation as radical, or as rewarding, as Split Enz. Across all their studio albums, the group evolved from theatrical art‑rock eccentrics into polished new‑wave hitmakers, all while maintaining a creative identity that was unmistakably their own.

This ranking looks at the entire studio catalogue, weighing artistic ambition, song writing strength, cohesion, and cultural impact. No compilations, no live albums, just the core records that shaped the Enz legacy.

Number One

True Colours (1980)
The breakthrough, the blueprint, the album where everything clicked. True Colours is Split Enz at full power: sharp new‑wave production, airtight song writing, and the timeless punch of I Got You, still one of the greatest singles ever produced in this part of the world. Every track feels purposeful, cohesive, and confident. It’s the band’s most complete artistic statement, the one that cemented their legacy.

Originally, the band thought Missing Person to be the album’s standout track, not realizing I Got You would become the hit. I Hope I Never was mixed differently for the Australian single release, with strengthened percussion. Nobody Takes Me Seriously, What’s the Matter with You and Poor Boy were released as singles in the northern hemisphere.

Fav Tracks: I Got You, Shark Attack, Poor Boy, I Hope I Never

Number Two

Time and Tide (1982)
A close runner‑up, Time and Tide is the band’s most atmospheric and emotionally mature record. Dirty Creature and Six Months in a Leaky Boat anchor an album that feels oceanic, introspective, and beautifully textured. It’s Split Enz at their most thoughtful, weaving mood and melody into something quietly powerful.

A near‑perfect blend of atmosphere, storytelling, and melodic sophistication. The band’s maturity shines through, and the production is lush without being overbearing. It’s the album that best captures Split Enz as thoughtful, adventurous adults rather than theatrical provocateurs or pop hitmakers. A career peak, just not the peak.

Fav Tracks: Six Months In A Leaky Boat, Dirty Creature, Never Ceases To Amaze Me

Number Three

Mental Notes (1975)

A surreal, theatrical art‑rock masterpiece. Phil Judd’s song writing is at its most eccentric and visionary, and the band’s early identity, strange, ambitious, defiantly original, is fully formed. It’s not the easiest listen, but it’s one of the most rewarding. A cult classic that still feels unlike anything else.

Bassist Mike 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.”

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 (their concert centrepiece) and Titus, named after the hero of Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy.

Fav Tracks: Maybe, Spellbound

Number Four

Conflicting Emotions (1983)

A divisive album, but an emotionally rich one. Tim and Neil Finn’s creative tension gives the record a moody, introspective edge, and Message to My Girl remains a career‑defining highlight. Sleek, stylish, and quietly complex, it’s an underrated chapter in the Enz story.

In contrast to the recording of their previous album Time and Tide (1982), which had been a happy time for Split Enz, the band have cited the sessions for Conflicting Emotions as the beginning of their breakup. As recording began, Tim Finn had just released a successful solo album, Escapade, and was focused on promoting it. As a result, six of the ten songs on the album are written and sung by Neil Finn.

Fav Tracks: Message To My Girl, Strait Old Line, I Wake Up Every Night

Number Five

Dizrythmia (1977)

The first post–Phil Judd reinvention, and a surprisingly confident one. With Tim Finn stepping forward and the band embracing a more theatrical art‑pop sound, Dizrythmia delivers classics like My Mistake and Bold as Brass. A colourful, transitional album that set the stage for their next evolution.

It was the first Split Enz album without co-founding members Phil Judd and Mike Chunn. Judd’s departure left Tim Finn as the band’s sole leader and main songwriter. Neil Finn, younger brother of Tim Finn, and Nigel Griggs replaced Judd and Chunn respectively. Meanwhile, Nigel’s old friend and former bandmate Malcolm Green took the place of Emlyn Crowther, who also left around this time.

The album is regarded as the start of the band’s commercial breakthrough, and marked a shift from art rock to more pop-oriented songs.

Fav Tracks: My Mistake, Bold as Brass

Number Six

Waiata / Corroboree (1981)

A polished new‑wave record with undeniable highlights History Never Repeats and One Step Ahead among them. The craftsmanship is strong, but compared to the albums surrounding it, Waiata feels slightly safer and less emotionally resonant. Still a solid, enjoyable listen.

Waiata is the Māori term for song and singing, while corroboree is an Aboriginal term. According to Noel Crombie the intention was to name the album using a word from the natives of every country it was released in. This did not go ahead and the only country to adopt this change was Australia. The rest of the world kept the New Zealand title Waiata.

The songs History Never Repeats and One Step Ahead were among the first music videos aired on MTV when the cable television channel launched in the United States in 1981

Fav Tracks: History Never Repeats, One Step Ahead, I Don’t Wanna Dance

Number Seven

Frenzy (1979)

Chaotic, scrappy, and bursting with personality. Frenzy captures a band caught between identities, but it also marks Neil Finn’s emergence as a major songwriter, thanks to the explosive I See Red. Messy, yes, but alive in all the right ways. Frenzy ventured further beyond the band’s art rock roots to more of a pop sound.

There was a long delay between the writing of the songs and the recording. Tim Finn said, “We’d been waiting nearly a year to do it so we’d done all the demos, rehearsed it and written new songs. We’d been waiting too long. There’s so much material. The album has twelve songs, but by the time we’d recorded it we’d written fifty more.”

Fav Tracks: I See Red, Give It A Whirl

Number Eight

Second Thoughts (1976)

Half new songs, half re‑recordings of Mental Notes material, Second Thoughts sits awkwardly between eras. The performances are cleaner, but the reworked tracks lose some of the surreal magic of the originals. A transitional album that hints at future brilliance without fully achieving it.

The band’s first album Mental Notes had not originally been released outside Australasia, therefore Second Thoughts was the band’s first album release in Europe and North America. In both territories, the album was titled Mental Notes and featured a different album cover, which was a reworked version of the original Mental Notes cover

Fav Tracks: Late Last Night, Matinee Idyll

Number Nine

Beginning of the Enz (1979)

More a collection of early material than a cohesive album, this release captures the band in a formative state, experimenting, evolving, and still searching for direction. Historically interesting, but artistically uneven.

The Beginning of the Enz is a compilation album from the New Zealand rock group Split Enz. It contains non-album singles and demos that pre-date the band’s first album, 1975’s Mental Notes. Three of these songs, 129, Lovey Dovey and Spellbound, were later re-recorded and included on Mental Notes and Second Thoughts.

Fav Tracks: For You, Sweet Talkin’ Spoon Song

Number Ten

See Ya ’Round (1984)

The final Split Enz album is also their least essential. With Tim Finn gone and the band effectively winding down, the record feels fragmented and low‑energy. Neil Finn contributes a few bright spots, but the spark that defined their best work is missing. A footnote rather than a finale.

Remaining songwriter Neil Finn, claiming to be a little daunted by the prospect of leading his older brother’s band, subsequently announced that this would be the final Split Enz studio recording. Since he only had an EP’s worth of material ready, the record was filled out by lightweight, experimental contributions from each of the other band members, as well as Kia Kaha, which had been previously released as a non-album B-side to Message to My Girl, the second single from their previous album Conflicting Emotions.

Fav Tracks: I Walk Away

Split Enz – featuring Tim Finn, Eddie Rayner, Neil Finn, and Noel Crombie – will reunite for their first tour in nearly 20 years on the Forever Enz Tour, confirmed for May 2026.

For complete tour and ticket information, see livenation.com.au.