Time on Earth

The stylised text for the band's name from the cover of Time on Earth

As he did for the first four Crowded House albums, Nick Seymour, also an artist, created the cover art for Time on Earth. The group's name "Crowded House" appears with jumbled case, some lower and some upper case, appearing as "cRoWdED HOusE". Similarly, the album title is also in a partial jumble with all but the last two letters in upper case, appearing as "TIME ON EARth."[20]

A sea serpent from Olaus Magnus's book History of the Northern Peoples (1555).

The cover also features a blue dragon eating a human, the design of which was a direct reference to the sea serpent image from Olaus Magnus's book History of the Northern Peoples.[20] The use of a dragon eating a man is to symbolise former member Hester being consumed by depression, symbolised by the dragon being blue, and this brought his time on earth to an early end.[20] The cover art is almost completely composed of newspaper cuttings collaged together, even the image of the man and the dragon are newspaper cuttings which Seymour painted onto. Only the tree on the right, and the title text are not composed of newspaper cuttings.[20] The tree is to pose as a simile for the tree under which Hester took his life in 2005.[20]

In November 2007, a special edition of Time on Earth was released featuring a colour altered cover. The cover's main background area, which was previously a sandy-wheat colour, was converted into an aqua-teal colour, while the tree in the image had a bird in a nest added to it.

According to Neil Finn, "It (Time on Earth) doesn't sound like any one particular Crowded House album, but it has elements of Crowded House... in as much as Nick and I make a sound together when we play and always did. I think there's a lot of heart and spirit in the album which is connected with the loss of our dear friend Paul but also an attempt to try and make sense of it and move forward. And as such, it seemed the most obvious and best way to do that was to be playing music again with each other, Nick and I. I want to be in a band and what other band could it be."[21] Crowded House's leader, Neil Finn has indicated that, as the album began life as a solo project, its sound is generally different from Crowded House, though similar in parts, indicating that no one album by the group sounds like this one. As the album is dedicated to Hester and attends to his death, much of the album has a mournful tone, however this has been received well by critics, with some indicating that "fortunately, Finn is a master at expressing ambiguity, (both) lyrically and musically".[22] Finn has said of the song "People Are Like Suns", that "Part of it is the idea that people burn brightly and then they fade out. Also, when I wrote it, I was reading Ian McEwan's novel Saturday, which begins with a man on his balcony watching his plane go down, so the first lines borrow something from that image."[23]

The song "Pour le monde" ("For the World" in French) was inspired when Finn was in Paris and observed a demonstration march protesting against the war on terror, with the chant "Pour le monde pas pour la guerre", which translates to "For the world, not for the war" (which is then sung in English directly after the French on the song).[24] Seymour adds that the song contains "a lot of nobility and integrity" and that when they have performed the song it "really does stand upright".[25] The last song recorded for the album, "Transit Lounge", is written about time spent in various transit lounges around the world, particularly Singapore and Bangkok.[25]

Lyrically, Andy Strickland of Yahoo! Music asserts that the album's song "English Trees" shows Finn's "brilliant weaving of a tale of loss and yearning marks him out as up there with the very best songwriters working today" and of the album's musical structure as a whole, comments that it is a "collection of songs that reflect Finn's usual palette of singalong pop ("She Called Up"), achingly fine ballads ("Pour le monde"), and darker, more ambient sounds ("A Sigh")".[26]

Jessica Letkemann of Billboard points out that, to those unfamiliar with Finn's solo work, expecting the album to resemble a prior Crowded House work would be surprised, insisting that "Gone are the more overtly '80s top 40 flourishes".[27] Bud Scoppa writes in Uncut Magazine that the album's extremes are portrayed in its first two songs, "Nobody Wants To", which he describes as "[setting] the prevailing melancholy mood, as Finn's slide guitar hovers like a solitary seabird over a vocal laced with regret", and "Don't Stop Now", in which "Finn explores the metaphorical possibilities of the GPS, seeking "something I can write about… something I can cry about".[17]

In April 2007, the band's website went live and included a confirmation of the track listing of Time on Earth.[1] Notably, the album has 14 tracks, only the second studio album by Crowded House to have as many, the previous being Woodface. The album features the guitar work of Johnny Marr, guitarist and songwriter of The Smiths, on "Even a Child" and lead single "Don't Stop Now;" Marr co-wrote the former song with Finn. The album also includes the song "Silent House", which Finn co-wrote with the Dixie Chicks (which also appeared on their 2006 Grammy-winning album Taking the Long Way). With the Australian and UK release, the CD unlocks an online exclusive download of a live version of the song "Silent House". Early releases of the album in the UK included an additional DVD. Following touring, on 3 November 2007, a special edition was released in Australia featuring a colour-altered cover and an extra CD featuring eleven songs from the 8 September 2007 performance at Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, for the North American leg of the Time on Earth tour.[28]

All tracks are written by Neil Finn, except where noted.

The tracks "Lost Island" and "Stare Me Out" are available on the vinyl version of this album. They are also available as b-sides to "Don't Stop Now", and as bonus tracks via digital music providers.

Time on Earth entered the Australian ARIA Albums Chart on 8 July at #2, just behind Michael Bublé's Call Me Irresponsible, however in its second week, it rose to the #1 position, swapping with Call Me Irresponsible which then moved to #2. It entered the RIANZ albums chart in New Zealand on 9 July 2007 also at #2, though slipped to #3 in its second week, instead of rising as it did in Australia. Crowded House's place of origin is held in contention due to the band being led by Neil Finn of New Zealand, however the band has always resided in, and was formed in, Australia. Due to this constant confusion, both ARIA and RIANZ consider the group to be native to their respective countries, as they're indicated as "local artists" in the album listings, on ARIA as a "red spot" and on RIANZ with the item highlighted in green.[30][31] On the U.S. Billboard 200, the album debuted at number 46, with about 16,000 copies sold in its first week.[32] The album entered the charts in the United Kingdom at #3 with sales of over 27,000, being Crowded House's highest charting studio album in the UK, only being superseded by Recurring Dream which achieved a #1 position and sold over a million copies. It also entered the Canadian Albums Chart #38, its Canadian peak position.