My ongoing fascination with Australia continues, and now it's the music. I'm currently grooving to Cool World by Mondo Rock, a nice slice of something good from 1981. I'm also enjoying tracks by Goanna, Skyhooks (an acquired taste to be sure), Mental As Anything, Cold Chisel, Australian Crawl, The Models, The Saints, The Masters' Apprentices, the odd bit of Daddy Cool and Russell Morris, whose Real Thing is a psych pop turn of the Sixties classic.
Remember when all we knew of Aussie singers was Rolf Harris? And even then, he was not really an Aussie at all because he had a show on TV over here. There was no mystery. The Easybeats troubled the charts once in the Sixties, the Seekers bought us a string of golden singalong pop classics infused with Aussie sunshine but after that, The Pushbike Song aside, things kind of went a bit quiet.
Sherbet, whom I'm since discovered were massive in their homeland but only hit paydirt here with Howzat, were about the only ones in the Seventies. Then came Men At Work at the end of 82 and we went Aussie rock mad, albeit briefly, with bands like Icehouse. Then INXS, Kylie and the whole Aussie thing arrived and everything changed, and not just in the charts.
But didn't it take a while? All those great missed pop hits from the Sixties to the Eighties. Check them out if you have time. I'm sure Cocktails can point you in the right direction.
