Customer Reviews

Ego Is Not a Dirty Word

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For those unfamiliar with this Australia group, it must be said up-front that they were T-H-E band of the 70's. Although quintessentially suburbian Melbourne, they spoke for a generation of youth living in Australia's major cities throughout the 1970's. This album is full of many hits (Ego, Saturday Night, All My Friends, Love on The Radio...)however the epic "Love's Not Good Enough" with the HEAVY bass line is the pick of the tracks. This CD (with their first album "Living in the 70's) is a great introduction to raw Australian music and alot of bloody talent!

The band Skyhooks are arguably the single most important Australian contribution to pupular music. While their potential was greater, Skyhooks split up before the Aussie Invasion sparked by AC/DC, Men at Work and INXS. Perhaps it is the very fact that Skyhooks were written into Australian folklore without the distractions of global success that led to them producing a sequence of albums without losing their unique style.

As ever, Greg Macainsh's quirky lyrics feature prominently on this album and are belted out in a way that only Shirley Straun can. Red Simons' famous coughing solo is there too - a true Skyhooks performance.

What once shocked and rocked and rocked a generation of Australians might be mild by today's standards, but there is an honesty in these songs which has never quite been matched elsewhere in this genre. Add to that the tunes and arrangements which are etched into all Australians and you have some idea of the reason why Skyhooks still sell out their occasional reunion tours.

If you have ever listened to Suzie Quatro, the Rolling Stones or the Eagles and want to try something new, Ego is the album for you.

Skyhooks were a radical change to an Australian rock scene used to apeing the international trends .Their first album,LIVING IN THE SEVENTIES,took the chart by the throat with songs that expressed the obsessions and frustrations of being a young Australian(six of the tracks were banned from radio).Feelings were ripe among the critics that the followup album would be anticlimatic at best. How wrong they were.Bassist and head songwriter Greg Macainsh had a swag of songs available due to constant gigging.EGO IS NOT A DIRTY WORD attained triple platinum status easily and spawned two hit singles.Macainsh was very good at writing satirical ditties on life,and love in the suburbs. LOVE'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH refected the swinger set. EVERY CHASE A STEEPLE told of the ratrace. SMARTARSE SONGWRITERS was a payoff to all those rock lyricists who claim to write the meaning of life in their songs.MERCEDES LADIES showed the empty lives of rich society women.SATURDAY NIGHT was a typical night out for a surban youth.All through EGO,the biting wordplay was backed up by smartly arranged rock'n'roll.The vocal gymnastics of Graeme "Shirley" Strachan have to be heard to be believed.The tour to support EGO was a first for Australia;fifteen tonnes of equipment, including a giagantic mushroom(Mushroom was their record label)which exploded at the show's zenith. If you're looking for guitar boogie with intelligent lyrics,then latch onto the Skyhooks and EGO IS NOT A DIRTY WORD.

This album was an interesting and fresh sound to me when it was first released here in the USA back in the mid seventies. This was the band that I AND ALL OF MY FRIENDS wanted to see after hearing the "Ego" LP. They wound up being the very first group that I ever saw in concert when they came to the Jacksonville, Florida coliseum as they were touring America as the opening act for Uriah Heep. Uriah Heep was a very much established band and was very familiar to us. Not knowing what to expect from Skyhooks who looked and dressed quite strangely to us at the time, we were very pleased with their performance as they etched into our minds a visual show that culmulated with "Horror Movie" ending with a TV set on the stage "exploding" at the end of the song and Greg Macainsh strutting over to the still smoking heap and putting his foot atop of the set as the lights faded down, the crowd cheered wildly as we all witnessed an "upstart" band who outperformed Uriah by far! These fond memories of Skyhooks led to a local love for Australian acts to follow....Little River Band , AC/DC, INXS and etc. No question that Skyhooks paved the way for others to follow. Take a listen to this LP and I don't think you can go wrong. We still have a very fond following for Skyhooks here in Jacksonville and I hope that you give them a chance to broaden your listening library.

Okay, much will be written about Skyhooks being important to the Australian Pop scene, but they are also important for documenting that period between glam excess and rude punk attitude. The band works best in short form content, snarky numbers like "You Only Love Me Cos I'm Good in Bed" and "Ego is not a Dirty Word".

I found these guys in a cut out bin at a record store in North Carolina in 1976. I bought it cause I thought the cover was cool it looked kinda punk, and it was hard to find punk stuff back then in NC.

Years later, it still works. Good stuff.

cd left off songs from the original LP. what a rip off. mainly, "you only like me cuss i'm good in bed." great song!

if you could, this would be great. when i was a young lad, yes, we all thought this was cool cause of the costume scene and all the rest but musically, come on. all you have to do is look at the you tube videos of the time to see what a sham this was. they had no balls at all. its all show, bubble gum pop. musically, this record sounds very close to manufactured pop, but they were supposedly this rebellous aussie force. diverse? yes. accomplished? hardly. more like rookie. and for all the laud shirl gets, he is the weakest link. like jon anderson without the melodic innovation. the only reason i give this 2 stars is 'the other side" which is the only thing musical ive heard that still has value and does not sound like a 70s paper plate. laugh at em for what aussie did to glam years too late.. but dont tell me you like this trite roller rink music. again, i cant hear the australian cultural significance , nor the make up-this review concerns the music only. and it DOES NOT stand the test of time.