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November 27, 2005
How do we write a cultural commentary of the 1990s in Australia?
Do we organize it around the effects of the rebellious music of Australian punk, post punk/new wave or indy bands that flourished in the inner cities in the late '70s to mid '80's?
The argue that the alternative music became mainstream If so, then what effect does that music have on Australian culture in the 1990s?
Do we organize it around the Quadrant conservative's culture and anarchy meme? Or their postmodern surface withour depth
Do we organize it around the emergence of a visual culture and the displacement of a literary culture?
Should we write about Australianness in a globalized world?
Or sexuality:
Or celebrity from a fan's passion that still burns?
I do not know the answer to these questions. Nor do I know any texts that do this. It seems to be accepted that if you want to understand the '90s then you have to understand the '70s as here was the first flowering of a distinctive and, finally, respected Australian music culture.
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I started seeing Sydney bands just prior to the grunge explosion when Mudhoney were the great new thing, and before Ratcat found sudden stardom. That was when I started going to Uni and discovered there was music outside of 2MMM.
My recollection of it was that there was a Sydney sound developing, a quaint guitar based Sydney-pop. Britain was mired in the shoe-gazer bands and America was being consumed by sub pop. Yet the Sydney bands were developing a form of guitar rock/pop that contains great dobs of story telling.
The most resilient of that time, and that style, has been You Am I, who remain one of my favourite bands. But there were plenty of others from that time, Cruel Sea, Hummingbirds etc. Even foreign bands got consumed by the Sydney-sound such as the Lemonheads.