If you haven’t listened to or heard of, The Seekers, I feel pretty sorry for you. Today, Australian musicians are pretty much accepted all over the world. But for years and years the thought of Australia selling music overseas was unthinkable. Through the 50’s to the early sixties, it just wasn’t done. No Australian had made a success in England, so it was generally thought that any music that came from there was “crap”. Somebody had to break the mould and prove to the rest of the world that Australian music was as good as, if not, better than international artists. That somebody was The Seekers.
Many Australian artists such as, INXS, AC/DC, The Bee Gees, Savage Garden, Midnight Oil and Crowded House have found acceptance in both Australia and America. But they all followed in the wake of The Seekers. In 1965 no Australian artist had ever made a big mark in England. Many had tried, but there was a general feeling that any Australian artists were inferior to English artists.
With this kind of attitude, it would have been unthinkable for them to have a number one there, let alone become recognized. It was made even harder by the fact that they had arrived at a time when the British invasion was at its peak. So they had to compete with such acts as, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. The fact that they outsold both of them at one stage, was a turning point for Australian music. Now it could finally be acceptable that an Australian act could be comparable to English performers.
Another crowning achievement was that they had a number one in America with, ‘Georgy Girl’. A country generally considered to be the snobbiest to Australian music. In fact, to this day, not a lot of Australian performers have had a number one there (Men At Work, Savage Garden, INXS, The Bee Gees to name a few). To have a number one there at such a hard decade to break in as the sixties, puts them in Australian music folklore. If they had not become accepted in another country, further Australian performers would never have even considered trying to break out internationally. Although The Seekers never really became very well known in America, ‘Georgy Girl’ is still a timeless classic. Even on a Simpsons episode, Homer can be singing, ‘Blimpy Boy’ to the tune of ‘Georgy Girl’.
So whenever you hear Australian music today, just remember that it wasn’t always this easy to be so successful. Every Australian performer today owes a debt to the milestones that The Seekers made in the mid-sixties.
