Perhaps we have never given Australia the credit it really deserves when it comes to exporting some pretty good music to our oil-washed shores. We have, it seems, a tendency to think only of Neighbors’ female star turned cancer fighter, Goddess of Pop, Kylie Minogue as the one good thing that came out of the dirt that gave us’ damn ‘Kevin Wilson.

Well, we may take a moment to recall Hutchinson’s sultry vocals in the style of Morrison and his band, INXS, but the story of modern Australian audio contributions doesn’t stop there. So it might be time to give Savage Garden a warm hug.

Giving the style of a meaningful male duo and taking a graceful place in the vein of two extraordinarily and slightly effeminate boy bands, Savage Garden first relied on her black eyeliner and arched voice on us in June 1997 with ‘I Want You ‘, a pretty straightforward song. To the point, no holes in the ‘come get me you beast’ track that was enough to strike a chord on even the mildest stalkers. Allowing us to fall into a trance like ‘I’ll say yes to anything’ kind of reaction, the low voices and chants gave us the most captivating clue of the year. Like nothing the public in the middle of the road had heard in a long time, its repetitive murmurs transported us to a different world. Out of the norm and 30,000 miles above sea level, this track led to a massive increase in sleepwalking (just kidding). Upon reaching the most dizzying heights of number 11, the rest of his short three-year career seemed to be written in melodic stone. Tragically, his story of incredible impact on an international scale rose dramatically through the charts and faded with the same disposition.

Their first self-titled album, ‘Savage Garden’, rose proudly to number two in March 1998, providing us with a mix of established hits and exciting prospects for future releases. It would have been easy to believe that his increasing speed in our hearts was going to be permanent. However, since her first single was number one in Canada, her hardest work had already gone unnoticed. Since running for an ad in 1993, budding teacher and vocalist Darren Hayes partnered with talented keyboardist Daniel Jones parted ways with a mediocre band to release ‘Savage Garden.’

Not many debut albums have gone platinum in the line of Ecuador, yet 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 diversity, instrumental capabilities. Perhaps the track we became most familiar with from this album is the thunderous ‘To The Moon And Back’, complete with all of the rock leanings that Richard Marx would have experienced had he stuck with a decent record label. First released while the rest of the world slept one day in September 1997, it totally passed by. If only the volume might have been set to a different number (Tap’s Nigel Tufnell could have helped here), strangely, it fell at number 55. This dramatic piece full of depth, anguish, and fading masses of violins should have produced more poison than the first time. 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 introduction to the space age puts us in the mood for something pretty big. Mockingly skirting the cusp of soft rock and grunge pop, it was easy to see that this band could be responsible for all manner of genres, as well as young teenage girls getting their panties wet …

If there could have been another song almost as depressing and equally irritating as ‘Anything I do’ by Bryan Adams (the man who never gave Levi’s a good name) from the charity shop, then ‘Truly, Madly, Deeply’ by Savage Garden wins. second prize for a short break for two in Hull. Beautifully poetic and equally as nauseating as two fingers down the throat for anyone who’s done a single recently, this track was the icing on the cake for all those poor moms stuck in loads of teen clothes. Prone to anyone under the age of sixteen, this track made the rest of us reach for the bucket and wish we had a dog. Well somebody bought it and heaps of copies as it sat uncomfortably at number four and got as many air games as people were buying stock in LBC (97.3) As you can deduce, my body’s romantic bone is having a day off. ….

In a handful of wild conscience, the rest of the album seems to be a slight disappointment. The oriental undertones of ‘Tears Of Pearls’ may have been something we would have missed on this vaguely ordinary record hit if it weren’t for the maybe, the chorus, where, as if by magic, the spirits are lifted and the rest . off the track slightly pleasant. Maybe it’s too much of a ‘Truly, sickly, sweetly’ in ‘Universe’. Sometimes a band needs to give a lot of leeway to certain styles, and easy-listening hymns with lounge themes are a definite no-no for this typically ’90s rock / pop band. Although Hayes carries a soft, seductive voice quite well, but with the thought of getting dangerously close to Michael Jackson’s B-side, it’s just not worth it. On the same subject, the release of the Australian single ‘Break Me, Shake Me’, is approaching the same scary corner. Too thrashy, it’s more or less the same level that MJ tried to reach when he decided to have a little fun trying his hand like some kind of heavy metal; You guys, I have managed to annoy some of you using MJ and heavy. metal in the same sentence, and for that, I am on my knees for your forgiveness …

“Carry On Dancing” felt like it was a mild attempt and retesting the space age theme. Where some bands in the past took the best aspects of a hit and flipped an entire album filling it with ten or more different angles of that same single, it would seem that Savage Garden felt the need to do the same. thing. They don’t, but they get too close to that. The nervousness of ‘To The Moon And Back’ is very evident in ‘A Thousand Words’, but it’s a track that suited them well. It’s a relief for Hayes ‘aching voice and Jones’ free run on the keyboards and drum machine his mother probably bought him one Christmas. It’s still a moment of accomplishment for the album and ‘Moon’, fans will be delighted with this track, but a track doesn’t make a band, as they say in the old industry …

The final track, so this album will have a tendency to be overlooked, so be careful to leave airtime for these boring tracks. The ending of ‘Santa Monica’ may not have the same bright tone if you changed the words to ‘Kidderminster, in the winter time …’, but it can still be heard, only more so if you swap the words. around for your own entertainment. It’s smooth and gentle and won’t disappoint teenagers or even the tiniest of imaginations in the slightest, so we should be relieved that it’s not some breaking fast stable like progressive rock or worse, reggae pop. so thanks guys …

The album will appeal 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 still be mentioned even if you are not from Oz …

They parted ways in 2001

His compilation ‘Truly, Madly, Completely’ includes some solo work and was released in November 2005.

Learn more at http://www.savage-garden.net

Interestingly, Darren Hayes looks like Deano from Eastenders …

Savage Garden were;

Darren Hayes – voice

Daniel Jones – everything else

Columbia Records

1997 sony music entertainment.

All song written by Savage Garden.

HMV – £ 6.99

Virgin – £ 5.99

Amazon – £ 7.99

© michelle hatcher (sam1942 on ciao and dooyoo) 2006.