The Go-Betweens

About

Few bands captured the bittersweet tension of smart pop quite like The Go Betweens, the Brisbane duo at the core of which were singer songwriters Robert Forster and Grant McLennan. Formed in late 1977, they built a reputation on literate, melodically rich songs that sat somewhere between pure pop and the gritty energy of the Velvet Underground. Their 1983 track "Cattle and Cane" was later voted one of the Top 30 Australian songs of all time by the Australasian Performing Right Association, and their 1988 album 16 Lovers Lane produced "Streets of Your Town", which charted in both Australia and the UK, while the follow up single "Was There Anything I Could Do?" reached No. 16 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart in the US. Forster and McLennan reunited the band in 2000, but McLennan's death from a heart attack in May 2006 brought things to a permanent close. Their legacy has only grown since: 16 Lovers Lane was featured in SBS TV's Great Australian Albums series in 2008, and in 2010 Brisbane renamed a toll bridge in their honour.