By Ian Fortman
August 2, 1997
It's an unfair old dinkum, your rock cosmos. Pharmaceutical
miscalculations regularly consign its brightest talents to a premature
demise, The Man habitually emasculates his puppet progeny on a
transient whim, David Bowie makes films. But never has this endless
cavalcade of ongoing injustice been more soul-destroyingly
well-defined, than by the unhindered ascendancy of certain
post-grunge, spawny gets to the rapacious ranks of the international
glitterati. You may well have already deduced that Bush are four
utterly fluke-blessed chancers with all the creative know-how of three
punch-drunk lemmings and a pissed protozoa. However, in the fortunate
stakes, silverchair make Bush look like Wile E Coyote. At 14, the
Antipodean trio won an Australian band search competition and topped
their nation's chart with the country's fifth-best selling single
ever. At 15, they watched their debut album (recorded in just nine
days) go effortlessly double platinum in the US of A. And at 16,
they've got their beady little adolescent eyes on the cowering
pop-kids of dear old Blighty. And to add insult to injury, they're
uniformly possessed of finely chiselled features utterly untainted by
acne. Doh!
'Freak Show' will merely reinforce silverchair's staggering reputation
for good fortune. Its bland, Nirvana-Lite stylings will casually
seduce countless millions via the miracle of MTV, and the 'Chair will
go on to outsell The Beatles, score hat-tricks in the '98 World Cup
Final and marry your favourite Spice Girl. Probably.
If you're fond of the odd mosh ('Slave'), partial to pilfered punk
('Lie To Me'), and are a student of Australian literature - "Take the
time to learn to hate/Come and join the mass debate" ('Learn To Hate')
- then 'Freak Show' could well be the album you've been waiting for.
If, however, you already own 'Nevermind', invest in some Lottery
tickets.
