Picture the scene: you’re having a quiet drink when you look across the bar and spot an ex of yours from way back when. You haven’t thought of them in ages. You look again and they look good. Better than good - they look hot! You begin to wonder why it ended with them in the first place.
You go over to them and reacquaint yourself. Initial impressions are good, so you take them home - then it all comes flooding back: you remember the horror! The whininess, the emotional gushiness, and the sappiness so inoffensive that it drives you out of your head. Is it too late to give them their bus fare home?
Well, the band Savage Garden is the musical equivalent of that ex. Before the release of this greatest hits collection, it is unlikely you’ve given them much thought in quite some time. You may have fond thoughts of classic tracks like ‘Truly Madly Deeply’ seducing you, but be warned this album is so relentlessly wet, it should come with a free towel.
Daniel Jones and Darren Hayes first joined forces in Brisbane, Australia in 1993 but only managed two albums before splitting in 2001. As a result, it’s hard to select material for a ‘Best Of’ album. The resulting choice is not much different from what a ‘Worst Of Savage Garden’ would be.
They can certainly write a gentle, melodic ballad with the kind of simplicity that buskers everywhere will be grateful for – for example ‘Hold Me’ and ‘Santa Monica’ conform to the bland acoustic blueprint.
The best of the songs, ‘Truly Madly Deeply’, ‘Affirmation’ and ‘I Knew I Loved You’, are the kind of songs that are wheeled out these days by X-Factor wannabes in order to show their softer side. In fact these songs are so fluffy, a shot of Viagra still would not produce any hardness.
In the last of these three songs, Darren simpers like a Forever Friends Valentine card: “I knew I loved you before I met you / I think I dreamed you into life”
Those of a nervous disposition (or musical sophistication) should avoid at all costs the tracks where they try and up the tempo: ‘I Want You’ is a woeful 80s-style Macarena whereas ‘Break Me Shake Me’s’ attempt to kick some ass is to muscular rock what Natasha Kaplinski is to warm sincerity. It is as surreal as those episodes of Terry and June where they’d dress up as punks: you just sit there, baffled, thinking, ‘What possessed them?’
The greatest asset that Savage Garden had was Darren Hayes and his unique voice. Whilst not a conventionally great singer, he possesses a rare, unusual, unpredictable vocal tone. His sound contains odd little fillips and caverns. It intrigues and beguiles the listener. He can, and does, imbue the lamest, most predictable songs with an energy and an off-kilter slant.The best was yet to come when Savage Garden ended and Darren moved to edgier, rawer material as a solo star. Go and buy his last solo album The Tension and The Spark and leave behind all that was truly, madly, drippy.
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