Perhaps we’ve never given Australia the credit it really deserves when it comes to exporting some pretty good music to our oil-drenched shores. We have, it seems, a tendency to think only of Neighbors’ female star turned cancer fighter, Goddess of Pop, Kylie Minogue as the only good thing to come out of the dirt that gave us ‘damn’ Kevin Wilson.
Granted, we can spare a moment to remember the sultry vocals of Morrison-esque Hutchinson and his band, INXS, but the history of modern Australian audio contributions doesn’t stop there. So it might be time to give Savage Garden a big hug.
Casting the style of a significant male duet and occupying a stylish place in the vein of two extraordinarily and slightly effeminate male bands, Savage Garden first relied on their black eyeliner and arching vocals in June 1997 with ‘I Want You’, a fairly straight to the point, no-holes, ‘come and catch me you beast’ type track that was enough to strike a chord with even the mildest of stalkers. Allowing us to fall into a trance like ‘I’ll say yes to anything’ kind of reaction, the low, singing vocals gave us the most captivating track of the year. Like nothing the middle street audience had heard in a long time, their repetitive murmurs transported us to a different world. Out of the ordinary and at 30,000 miles above sea level, this clue led to a massive increase in sleepwalking (just kidding). Reaching the dizzying heights of number 11, the rest of his short three-year career seemed set in melodic stone. Tragically, his story of incredible international impact rose dramatically up the charts and faded in the same preparation.
Their first self-titled album ‘Savage Garden’ proudly ascended to number two in March 1998, providing us with a mix of already established hits and exciting prospects for future releases. It would have been easy to believe that his speed of accumulation in our hearts was going to be permanent. However, since her first single went to number one in Canada, her hardest work had already gone under the radar. Since running for an ad in 1993, budding teacher and vocalist Darren Hayes has teamed up with talented keyboardist Daniel Jones and parted ways with a mediocre band to release ‘Savage Garden’.
Not many debut albums have gone platinum on the equator line, however this album brimming with eclectic ideas proved to members of the world with ears that this band was going to create a phenomenon of excellent songwriting and diverse instrumental capabilities. Perhaps the track we’re most familiar with on this album is the thunderous ‘To The Moon And Back’, which comes complete with all the rock leans Richard Marx would have experienced had he stuck with a decent record label. First released while the rest of the world was sleeping one day in September 1997, it completely bypassed the world. If only the volume had been set at a different number (Tap’s Nigel Tufnell could have helped here), it oddly landed at number 55. This dramatic piece full of depth, angst and vanishing violin masses should have produced more venom than the first time around. Fortunately, Columbia made sense and reissued the single in August of the following year, and the result was a violent nudge to number three. This space-age intro totally puts us in the mood for something pretty big. Playfully skirting the cusp of soft rock and grunge pop, it was easy to see that this band could be responsible for all sorts of genres, as well as panty-wetting young teens…
If there had been another song nearly as depressing and equally irritating as ‘Anything I do’, by Bryan Adams (the man who never gave Levi’s a good name), then Savage Garden’s ‘Truly, Madly, Deeply’ wins second prize for a short break for two in Hull. Wonderfully poetic and equally nauseating as two fingers down the throat of anyone who has recently become single, this song was the icing on the cake for all those poor moms stuck with loads of teenage clothes. Prone to anyone under the age of sixteen, this clue made the rest of us reach for the bucket and wish we had a dog. Well someone bought it and loads of copies of it as it sat uncomfortably at number four and got the most hype people were buying shares in LBC (97.3).
In wild bits of consciousness, the rest of the album seems to be a slight disappointment. The oriental nuances of ‘Tears Of Pearls’ may have been something we would have missed in this vaguely ordinary disco thump were it not for the maybe, chorus, where, as if by magic, the mood is lifted and the rest of the track is mildly pleasurable. Maybe it’s too ‘Truly Sick Sweet’ in ‘Universe’. Sometimes a band must give a wide berth to certain styles and easy listening lounge theme anthems are definitely a no no for this typically 90s rock/pop band. Although Hayes has a soft, seductive voice quite well, the idea of getting dangerously close to a Michael Jackson B-side isn’t worth it. On the same subject, the Australian single release ‘Break Me, Shake Me’ approaches the same scary corner. Too thrashy, it’s pretty much the same level MJ tried to reach when he decided to have a little fun trying his hand at some kind of heavy metal: y’all, I managed to upset some of you by using MJ and heavy metal in the same sentence, and for that, I’m on my knees to apologize…
‘Carry On Dancing’, I felt like it was a mild attempt and tried the space age theme again. While some bands in the past have taken the best aspects of a hit and turned an entire album on its head by filling it with ten or more different angles on that single single, it seems that Savage Garden felt the need to do the same. They don’t, but they get too close. The nervousness of ‘To The Moon And Back’ is very evident in ‘A Thousand Words’, but it’s a track that suits them. It’s a way of loosening the leash on Hayes’s aching voice and free run for Jones to have on the keyboards and drum machine his mom probably bought him one Christmas. It’s still a hit moment for the album and ‘Moon’, the fans will be delighted with this song, but a song doesn’t make a band, as they say in the old industry…
The final track, so this album will tend to get overlooked, so be careful to leave airtime for these boring tracks. The final ‘Santa Monica’ may not have the same brilliant sound if you change the words to ‘Kidderminster, in the Winter time…’, but it’s still audible, even more so if you change the words for your own entertainment. It’s smooth and mellow and won’t disappoint teens or even the smallest imagination in the slightest, so we should all be relieved that it’s not a last minute fast stable like prog rock or worse reggae pop so thanks guys…
The album will be of interest to anyone who remembers them and to anyone still in school studying social history. They may not deserve a reserved seat in the theater of modern music history, however their rapid career should be mentioned even if you’re not from Oz…
They separated in 2001
His ‘Truly, Madly, Completely’ compilation includes some solo work and was released in November 2005.
More information at http://www.savage-garden.net
Strangely Darren Hayes looks like Deano from Eastenders…
Wild garden they were;
Darren Hayes – vocals
Daniel Jones – everything else
Colombian records
1997 sony music entertainment.
All songs written by Savage Garden.
HMV – £6.99
Virgin – £5.99
Amazon – £7.99
©michelle hatcher (sam1942 on ciao and dooyoo) 2006.