Not all Australian bands were punk-inspired indies, suburban oz-rockers or paisley-wearing jangly guitar bands. There was an acoustic revival here too.
Evidence? Well, the Go-Betweens consistently applied a sound based on acoustic guitars (and outstanding songwriting). They ignored musical fashions and were utterly dedicated to their art. They only had one chart hit, ‘Streets of Your Town’ (1988), but their reputation has grown since the 80s.
Kev Carmody’s debut album Pillars of Society (1989) had acoustic arrangements and protest-style lyrics. It is great that he has just been inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame.
There was Paul Kelly’s magnificent acoustic album Post. Kelly had disbanded the Dots in 1982 and, after two years without a record deal, he moved to Sydney. I was already a Kelly fan – I loved his first two albums Talk and Manila. I remember seeing him on a succession of Sunday nights at the Strawberry Hills Hotel (it must have been 1985), playing acoustic with Michael Barclay on harmonies and Spencer P Jones on guitar. It was clear that Kelly was writing songs at a phenomenal rate. That’s where I first heard him do ‘From St Kilda To Kings Cross’, ‘Laughing Boy’ and ‘Bradman’. These were brilliant songs — dark, acoustic and intense. Except one night when he sang Culture Club’s ‘Karma Chameleon’.
The Lighthouse Keepers recorded country-flavoured acoustic rock for the Sydney independent label Hot. In fact country music became cool at inner city venues, with bands like Dancehall Racketeers, the Happening Thang and Fifty Million Beers. But that’s another post.
What Australian acoustic music appealed to you in the 80s?
Quote: ‘I’ve always wanted to do a collection of my acoustic numbers with the London Philharmonic.’ (David St Hubbins, This Is Spinal Tap, 1983)
When we think of 1980s music, acoustic and folk are not styles that immediately come to mind. We tend to think more of pop music performed by attractive, well-groomed performers accompanied by synthesizers, drum machines and sequencers. Acoustic music was unfashionable. This, for me, made it appealing. I’d like to talk about some of my favourite 80s acoustic music, albums that managed to penetrate the synth pop jungle. Up-to-date production values were not what made these albums good. It was the songs.
In 1982 Bruce Springsteen released Nebraska. He had recorded the songs at home as demos for his band but decided to release them as they were. Pared back to the basics of acoustic guitar and harmonica, his songs held up as haunting narratives of working class desperation.
I remember my friend Tim Toni telling me around 1985 about new British music from Tracey Thorn, Ben Watt and Billy Bragg. Thorn and Watt released acoustic-ish solo albums before joining forces to form Everything But the Girl.
The folk revival of the 1950s accommodated a set of ideological presuppositions from the political left and included minority voices. Billy Bragg conveyed this kind of folk protest sensibility with a solo electric guitar. It wasn’t acoustic, but he was an angry young man standing alone on stage railing against the establishment. I saw him at Selina’s. I think it was in 1988.
Elvis Costello went acoustic in 1986 with his gem of an album King of America (his best work in my book). Then he toured Australia, playing acoustically with T-Bone Burnett at the Sydney Entertainment Centre. I seem to recall that the album flopped, and Elvis went back to recording with the Attractions, quickly releasing the mediocre Blood and Chocolate, which was well received. Go figure.
Meanwhile stateside, Michelle Shocked appeared with a punk-folk attitude on her roughly recorded debut album The Texas Campfire Tapes. Suzanne Vega emerged from the New York folk scene to sing smart, poetic songs in a gentle voice. Overseas she is remembered for ‘Luka’, her 1987 song about domestic violence, but here in Australia we had already latched on to her first album, the one with ’Marlene on the Wall’.
Tracy Chapman bobbed up with a cracker of a first album. She was one of the few Americans in the Reagan era who were ‘talking about a revolution’.
The Indigo Girls had a radio hit in 1989 with ‘Closer to Fine’, from their self-titled album. There were other acoustic acts too, like the Roches and Bruce Cockburn. Can you think of more examples? Is it drawing a long bow to call this 80s phenomenon ‘the second folk revival’?
The Violent Femmes used acoustic instruments to play a kind of punk folk. ‘Blister in the Sun’ is one of those 80s songs whose appreciation has grown over the years. Another is Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’, which he wrote in the 80s. It appeared on his 1984 album Various Positions. Bob Dylan helped to popularize it by performing it in concert in 1988. Speaking of Dylan, for whom this is regarded by many as a low period, he wrote some of his best songs in the 80s — ‘Every Grain of Sand’, ‘Jokerman’, ‘Blind Willie McTell’, ‘Dark Eyes’, ‘Brownsville Girl’ and the entire Oh Mercy album. When he was persuaded in 1985 to go for a 1980s approach to production, Arthur Baker was recruited to mix the recordings. The result was Empire Burlesque, which, with its gated snare drums and synths, now sounds horribly dated, despite the good songs.
And what of folk music in the 80s? Of course there were artists who had stuck to playing folk styles for decades. But in terms of new music, the label had lost its meaning. Unsupportable notions of authenticity had been exposed long ago. Ethnic or folkloric musical styles from Latin America, Africa and elsewhere were re-branded as world music, enabling record shops to group them in a category. In 1986 Paul Simon introduced world music to the masses with the huge-selling Graceland.
At the end of the decade (November 1989 in fact), MTV Unplugged first went to air in the US. And so began the 90s phenomenon of rock stars who usually use electric instruments reinterpreting their hits with acoustic guitars.
It’s Friday afternoon and here’s my latest theory. In the 1980s baby boomers grew up and took pop music with them. As they gained employment, many enjoyed the benefits of the economic surge. Boomers sought music more suited to their newfound adult sensibilities. As a result, the decade saw the rise of suave, well-dressed singers like Robert Palmer, whose ‘Simply Irresistible’ video encapsulates the suave yuppie 80s ethos.
There was the elegant and classy Sade, singing in 1984 about affluent lifestyles on Diamond Life (‘Smooth Operator’ told the story of a jet-setting ladies’ man.) And what about Huey Lewis and the News? ‘Hip to be Square’ was an anthem of 80s conservatism. Even Mick Jagger recorded a sophisticated, dance-inflected, highly produced, solo album, She’s the Boss. (Remember when he performed at Live Aid backed by Daryl Hall & John Oates’ band?)
Australia had its own exponents of 80s adult pop, such as the Eurogliders and Mondo Rock.
You can point to a more specific genre of sophisticated adult-oriented pop, that was smooth and radio friendly, with a jazz tinge. I’m thinking Terence Trent D’arby, Kenny G, Style Council, Matt Bianco, Everything but the Girl, Swing Out Sister, Joe Jackson (post-Beat Crazy), Prefab Sprout, Level 42 and, most prominently, Sting. Australia had new exponents of popular jazz like Vince Jones and James Morrison. And Kate Ceberano went jazzy with her septet.
Then there were those purveyors of new age music on the Windham Hill label, like Vangelis.
Some ageing baby boomers and disgruntled hippies resisted the trend to sophistication in the 80s. They used to argue that mainstream pop music had become more slick, produced, processed, synthetic, manufactured and corporatised. To them, music seemed to have become more dependent on image, style (and classy saxophone solos) than substance, sincerity and songwriting.
Before digital technology allowed for cheap home recording and DIY distribution, multinational record companies were at the peak of their power, ensuring corporate control over music. In 1986 the Electric Pandas appeared in a TV commercial for Coca-Cola and Eurogliders appeared in one for Faberge jeans! I don’t see anything wrong with this – good luck to them! However you can understand why people felt music had gone corporate. Robert Palmer even turned ‘Simply Irresistible’ into a Pepsi commercial. Apologies for the picture quality in this embedded clip but you’ll get the idea.
The 80s was also a time of indulgent celebrity record producers. Kylie Minogue’s hits were produced on the assembly line of Stock, Aitken, Waterman, whose name sounded like a firm of accountants.
Those who tired of synth pop, haircut bands, glam metal, overwrought power ballads, Farnsie & Barnsie and over-the–top gated snare drums sought alternatives, like hardcore punk, dance music, rap and indie rock. Some looked for acoustic music, but that’s another story.
