- Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express (Remastered) · 1986
- Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express (Remastered) · 1986
- 16 Lovers Lane (Remastered) · 1988
- 16 Lovers Lane (Remastered) · 1988
- Before Hollywood · 1983
- The Go-Betweens - Live On Snap · 1999
- Fountains of Youth (Live at the Town and Country Club) · 2020
- Fountains of Youth (Live at the Town and Country Club) · 2020
- Fountains of Youth (Live at the Town and Country Club) · 2020
- Fountains of Youth (Live at the Town and Country Club) · 2020
- Fountains of Youth (Live at the Town and Country Club) · 2020
- Fountains of Youth (Live at the Town and Country Club) · 2020
- Fountains of Youth (Live at the Town and Country Club) · 2020
Essential Albums
- The Go-Betweens are so synonymous with accomplished indie pop perfection that their early work can come as an unpolished surprise. The band’s second studio album, Before Hollywood, is a transition point—not as refined as their later work but more profound than anything in the Robert Forster/Grant McLennan songbook pre-1983. Conceived over a grim English winter, the album oscillates between dark poetry and splashes of Australian sunshine, with “Cattle and Cane” providing snapshots of a Queensland childhood amidst the chiming upswing of Forster’s guitar.
Albums
- 2005
- 1988
- 1988
- 1987
- 1987
Singles & EPs
About The Go-Betweens
Robert Forster and Grant McLennan were known for their songwriting, which was marked by smart lyrics and tuneful choruses, and the band they founded in 1977 added jangly guitars and purposeful rhythms to the mix. Forster and McLennan formed The Go-Betweens after meeting at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, and they released their first single, “Lee Remick”, a month after playing their first show. Send Me a Lullaby, the band’s debut LP, came out in 1981, garnering notice from the local press for McLellan and Forster’s blend of naïve sentiments and crisp song structures. The Go-Betweens further refined their chiming yet propulsive sound, earning a cult following that exploded in 1988 when they released 16 Lovers Lane, which hit big in the US on the then-surging modern-rock format with the dejected yet upbeat “Streets of Your Town” and the biting “Was There Anything I Could Do?” McLennan and Forster disbanded The Go-Betweens in 1989; they performed a reunion show in 1996 and then returned full-time to making music in 2000. The band released three more albums, including 2000’s Sleater-Kinney-assisted The Friends of Rachel Worth and 2005’s adventurous Oceans Apart, before McLennan’s death in May 2006. Forster has continued on as a solo artist, and in 2016 he published Grant & I, a memoir focused on The Go-Betweens’ central partnership.
- ORIGIN
- Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
- FORMED
- 1978
- GENRE
- Alternative