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Australia, the 1990s: Strictly Ballroom, Silverchair, Mabo, Port Arthur, economic rationalism, and Pauline Hanson.
Within its more concealed history, the opening of the decade saw punk in Australia experiencing a transitory lull. Populated mostly by the diehards and remnants of the 1980s, its sound and style were in danger of being subsumed, or at least diluted, by grunge and alternative music through a resurgent interest in guitar-driven bands.
Able to maintain its own identity and networks against the challenge, as the decade progressed punk evolved into even more diffuse subgenres. Now, twenty years after its relatively inauspicious birth in Australia, punk, in one of its multivarious forms, topped the national music charts.
But though the decade brought if not respectability then a new saleability to punk, it was an era still prone to its tumult, tragedy, humour, and audacity.
Through a further 70 interviews, Orstralia: A Punk History 1990-1999 continues the disclosure of its first volume, covering bands from the most obscure to those who reached the very apex of Australia's music industry. |
