It’s no secret that Aussies know their way around a song. What's lesser known is how many international icons have collaborated with Melbourne artists to produce some of music’s most prized hidden gems.
You know the big hits; you know the deep cuts. But dig a little deeper into the discographies of your favourite international artists and you’ll hit a kind of gold that the least foolish of music fanatics have been listening to for decades.
From U2 to Johnny Cash, Cat Power to Snoop Dogg, if there’s one thing that all these world-famous musicians have in common, it’s collaborating with some of the best that this country has bred.
Read on to find out who the who’s who of music has joined up with to create sonic gold.
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Moon Pix: Cat Power and Mick Turner, Jim White and Andrew Entsch
Local legend Andrew Entsch and Mick Turner and Jim White of the Dirty Three helped bring Cat Power’s Moon Pix into existence, creating an indie-rock record for the ages.
1998 saw Chan Marshall (Cat Power) visit Australia for the very first time. What began as a visit that provided a sense of escapism for the American artist, Melbourne quickly became the place that Chan would record one of her most adored and critically acclaimed albums, Moon Pix. The trio bunkered down in Naarm’s Sing Sing Studios and created what many consider one of the artist’s best albums, if not the very best
Speaking to Kate Hennessy from The Guardian in 2018, Chan shared her reflections on the making of Moon Pix twenty years after its release. “It feels like I’m alive today because of being able to write those songs,” Chan said. “Instead of darkness, instead of other choices humans make, I chose to write songs. Moon Pix was my salvation as a very mixed-up young person. And suddenly I see that.”
I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry: Johnny Cash and Nick Cave
While Nick Cave is far from any kind of jester when it comes to Australian music royalty – being one of the biggest names this country has produced – the artist’s collaboration with Johnny Cash deserves a special mention. A long-time hero of Nick’s, the Australian artist has only mentioned his collaboration with Johnny a handful of times throughout his career, but never so personally as when he shared the story in his newsletter, The Red Hand Files.
Nick recounts how he’d looked up to Johnny Cash since he was a ten-year-old watching The Johnny Cash Show. “As a kid I had been genuinely transfixed,” Nick writes. “[Johnny Cash] went on to have considerable influence over the songs I wrote in The Birthday Party and The Bad Seeds and, of course, the way I would sing them.”
In 2002, legendary music producer Rick Rubin called up Nick to ask if he wanted to sing with Johnny. In what Nick describes as a transcendental experience of watching music breathe life back into someone whose whole existence has been led by it, Nick Cave and Johnny Cash recorded a few songs together. One of them – which Nick says brought tears to his eyes as he sung the song with Johnny – is this perfect rendition of I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.
New York, New York: U2 and Ecco Homo
The most obscure of these collaborations and most definitely the lesser known is the 1990 collaboration that involves Bono and The Edge from a little Irish rock band that goes by the name of U2. The lesser-known Melbourne electronic group Ecco Homo teamed up with the world-famous icons, creating a collaboration that should be considered one for the ages. Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of Ecco Homo – you’re not alone.
Ecco Home is the brainchild of Aussie artist Troy Davies and the late, great electronic musician Ollie Olsen. Teaming up together in the late ’80s, the duo created a soaring star of a sonic project that burned bright, burned quick, and burned out. Ecco Homo was a short-lived project, producing only two singles (plus a B-side) – one of which casually featured both Bono and The Edge.
New York, New York is that single in question – a bizarre hidden gem in Australia’s music history that seems to be forgotten to the archives of time. While Ollie was known as a key player in the country’s underground music scene at the time, and Troy was a well-known character enmeshed in the worlds of art, music, film and fashion around Melbourne, the fact that they managed to secure two of the world’s biggest rockstars to collaborate on their song is a story that should be celebrated far and wide.
A non-Melbourne bonus – Get ‘Em Girls: Snoop Dogg and Jessica Mauboy
This pick doesn’t count as much because a) Jess Mauboy definitely isn’t from Melbourne and b) it’s not an undiscovered gem because you’ve no doubt heard it. And if you haven’t, please stop reading and go listen to Get ‘Em Girls by Jessica Mauboy featuring Snoop Dogg. Right now. We had to include it in this article because if it was up to us, we’d include it in every article.
A bit of an iconic banger, Get ‘Em Girls sees Australian Treasure Jess teaming up with world-famous rapper Snoop Dogg on a song that feels just about as 2010 as any song can feel. The lead single off her album of the same name, the Get ‘Em Girls’ collab between the two artists was the mastermind idea of co-writer and producer of the song Bangladesh.
Despite the mixed reviews from both fans and critics alike at the time of its release, there’s no denying that the Get ‘Em Girls collaboration should hold a special place in the heart of the music-listening Australian public.
Check out our series on the most underrated Melbourne bands of all time here.
