4TheRecord is dedicated primarily to Ausmusic from all eras and most genres, we will explore the dynamics of the creative process, and reveal the great drama, lyricism, musicality, and emotion behind each classic song.
Kylie Minogue has just completed the Australian leg of her Golden Tour which played to packed houses around the country and she enjoyed similar success with her stadium shows in the UK and Europe. Kylie’s latest album Golden is a clever fusion of country pop with electronica and dance-pop, it was a #1 hit in Aust and the UK and top 10 in eight other European countries, and the lead single Dancing, climbed to #1 on the US Dance Charts, and #8 in Australia. Mature performers like Minogue who turned 50 last year, Madonna who is 60 and Cher who is still touring at 72, are pop icons, Kylie continues to have hits over thirty years after taking Locomotion to the top of the Australian charts back in 1987, this week Kylie is our ARIA Hall of Fame Hero and we re-visit two of her early hits, one from the late 1980’s -a duet with her former Neighbours co-star Jason Donovan Especially For You and 1990’s Better the Devil You Know.
Vanessa Amorosi was once the inescapable face of Ausmusic, her hits Absolutely Everybody, Shine, and The Power, were synonymous with the dawning of the new millennium and the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games and they shot the notoriously private singer into the spotlight. She took four years out to recharge her batteries and re-define her image and musical direction, re-emerging in 2008 with the hit album Somewhere in the Real World and the top five single Perfect, she enjoyed further success in 2009 with her first national #1 hit, This Is Who I Am and the album Hazardous. In 2009 Amorosi left Australia and settled in LA, where she has lived for the past 10 years, she is married and a mother, and after collaborating with Dave Stewart (Eurythmics) she is back in Australia to promote her new single to be released this month Heavy Lies the Head, this week we look back to where it all started for Vanessa Amorosi in 1999/2000 with those anthemic hits, in our Special Feature post.
Ross Wilson is a legend of Ausmusic, who has blazed a trail through many musical genres from his early garage rock with the Pink Finks and radical innovation with the Party Machine, to the avant-garde mod rock of Procession, experimental parodic psychedelia and blues as leader of the Zappa-influenced Sons of the Vegetal Mother, to national acclaim as front man for the doo-wop inspired Daddy Cool, and notably their song that has become a national treasure – Eagle Rock. Rated by APRA as the second-best Australian song written in the period 1926-2001, after the Easybeats peerless mod rock anthem Friday on My Mind, 4TR revisits the intriguing provenance of this great song which had its origins years before it became a hit in 1971 and was once famously rejected by Ross Hannaford’s Dylan-covers band Quinn, in the early 70’s!
Melbourne’s Cheyne Coates and Andy van Dorsselaer were Madison Avenue, a pop/house music fusion duo who took their feminist techno dance hit Don’t Call Me Baby right to the top of the UK charts in 2000 and broke a 17-year drought for locally-produced records topping the UK charts, going right back to Men at Work’s Down Under in 1983. The song was a big hit, selling over 620,000 copies and climbing into the top 5 in four European countries as well hitting #1on both the US and Canadian Dance charts. They quickly followed up with the hit Who the Hell are You, another global success, Madison Avenue are our ARIA Winner Flashback this week after taking out the ARIA Award for Single of the Year in 2000, and Video of the Year in 2001.
The Masters Apprentices formed in Adelaide in the 60’s, relocated to Melbourne, but soon after all their original members had departed except for lead singer Jim Keays. They reformed in the late 1960’s and became the bad boys of the local rock scene, regularly hitting the charts with Keays/Ford original songs, strutting the stage in leather outfits, and inhabiting a notorious groupie HQ at Carlisle Ave.in St Kilda (Melb). In 1970 they took the retro rocker Turn Up Your Radio into the top ten, soon after they followed the well-worn trail of other Aussie groups to Swinging London via a Sitmar cruise liner, there they recorded the sublime Because I Love You at Abbey Road Studios, 4TR looks back at both these songs in this week’s Years Ago post.
4TR is listening to your feedback, as our audience grows and your likes increase, we have decided to publish 4TR twice weekly on Tuesday and Thursday from next week, this will allow more time for our readers to continue to enjoy our comprehensive reviews of Ausmusic at their leisure – next week we will be featuring songs by Olivia Newton-John, Ben Lee, The Seekers, Russell Morris, and Alex Lloyd – stay tuned, we love your feedback.
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