Great Australian Albums / 16 Lovers Lane - The Go-Betweens

''The Go-Betweens were arguably Australia's finest rock/pop band - a band that never really had mainstream success. Their heyday was in the 80's and, line-up changes included, they have released some 9 albums. This part of the Great Australian Albums series focuses on their 1987 album 16 Lovers Lane. It was an important release for many reasons. It was the album that finally promised to lead them into the big-time with the pop confection that was Streets of Your Town. That never happened and the band toured then crashed and burned soon after, not releasing another record for 12 years.

If there is any abiding impression left by the Great Albums series it is that making records is hard. Band members fight, producers struggle to capture the right sound and the bands question their resolve to make music. 16 Lovers Lane was no exception. Golden Era bass player Robert Vickers had left the band after Tallulah and was replaced by rough diamond John Willsteed who apparently had a negative influence on the band allegedly through regular intoxication and a lack of belief in the skills of other band members. Songsmith Robert Forster and drummer and co-founder Lindy Morrison were going through a break-up and she was enduring a family crisis which left her very little time to spend in the studio.

About the only ones who were having fun were co-writer Grant McLennan and multi-instrumentalist Amanda Brown who were still in love. Only a year after the record came out the band broke up for reasons that remain sketchy. There's a reason Morrison and Brown don't appear in the same room as Forster (McLennan having died of a heart attack in 2006) as they still can't forgive the boys for the manner of the disbanding.

Crises can often produce great art and 16 Lovers Lane benefitted from a blend of the boundless joy of love and the quiet despair at the loss of it.

Lovers of The Go-Betweens may well baulk at the choice of album to celebrate. Some, like me, found Springhill Fair and Tallulah to be the highest points of the band and yet others see Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express to be their masterpiece. In truth, every Go-Betweens album is a masterpiece of sorts - however, it is perhaps the case that none meant quite so much for the history of the band as 16 Lovers Lane.

This is a fine documentary for lovers of the band and will no doubt send fans scouring YouTube for other songs and concert footage of the band. The great songs from the album like Love Goes On, Dive for your Memory, The Devil's Eye and others are given full treatment even if Robert Forster's descriptions of the basis of the songs make less sense than the lyrics themselves!''

(Trevor Darge)

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