– 25th Anniversary Edition –
Predating the post-punk power-pop revival and all of its accompanying “knacks”, a bunch of Adelaide’s skinny-tied “young moderns” were sooo hip, it was actually unhip for the time being.
Calling themselves “the ultimate suburban band” they were said to be missing the power and angst of punk and were appealing only to nice people (!?), with their good taste getting in the way of late ‘70s punk outrage..
Hearing the not-really-punk-but-still-genuine-mid’60s-r’n’beat-inspired-nuggets such as Automatic, Countdown, Red Dress On or The Radio Song, makes clear enough where the initial inspiration for fellow Aussie bands like The Sunnyboys comes from, and the same goes for some of the bit more melodic stuff, all with an audible Kinky flavour to them, made even more distinctive with John Dowler’s voice, as heard in Sportsgirls, It’s Not A Crime and especially in She Wants To Be A Singer.
It’s only with She’s Got The Money that they get punky enough, in quite a “nice” way though, matching “them” Dublin origin’s of Dowler, as well as his Joe Kelly (The Shadows of Knight) good-looks, gracing the CD cover, which actually happens to be much closer to the band’s live sound, as evidenced by quite a few bonus examples, most notably Do You Care?, It’s Her Way or Girl Of Mine.
Considering all of the above said, I suppose Stuart Coupe had no idea (or did he?) how prophetic his original sleeve notes to the posthumously released 1980 album might sound in 25 years, now that Young Modern ARE “recognized as one of true greats of Australian rock’n’roll”.
[Released by Aztec Music 2005]
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