Australian anthemsMusicSilverchair – Tomorrow: the song that blew open Australian rock
Australian anthems: Sophisticated it isn't, but the global success of this tune by teenagers from Newcastle had a massive impact on aspiring Australian musicians
Tomorrow is not a complicated song, and it certainly isn’t original. When it was released in 1994, many critics savaged it. To this day, Silverchair’s most ardent fans continue to debate its artistic merits.
But Tomorrow deserves recognition nonetheless. It is arguably the most important Australian song of the past 20 years – not because it broke new ground musically, but because it had an immeasurable impact on the young Australian musicians who came to dominate the airwaves in the second half of the 1990s.
Written by singer/guitarist Daniel Johns and drummer Ben Gillies when the pair were in their early teens, the song hews closely to the Seattle grunge formula but crackles with a younger and less oppressive energy than Nirvana’s big singles. The lyrics – inspired, Johns says, by a television documentary – combine sing-song simplicity and adolescent intensity.
The track was a massive hit, spending six weeks at No 1 on the Aria singles chart and propelling the band’s debut album, Frogstomp, to nine times platinum status in Australia. In October 1995, a full year after its release, Tomorrow won three Aria awards, and Frogstomp scooped an additional two.
Around the country, young Australians of all stripes were becoming devotees of the band. Silverchair managed to appeal both to younger teens, for whom Tomorrow was a first taste of powerful rock music, and to older, more discerning listeners, who recognised and approved of the group’s influences.
Meanwhile, the song caught fire in north America. A new music video that took its cues from popular grunge clips of the early 90s was shot specifically for the US market and soon found favour with MTV’s programmers. Rock radio and college stations followed suit. Tomorrow soon hit number one on both the Billboard modern rock tracks and the album rock tracks charts. It was the most-played song on American modern rock radio in 1995.
The track polarised American music critics. Many were unhappy that Silverchair – whom they dismissed as young, foreign, and derivative – had achieved mainstream success in the States. A wave of negative publicity followed the trio’s first live shows on US soil.
But for each scathing review, there was a critic willing to give the band a chance. Writing in the New York Times, Dimitri Ehrlich called Frogstomp “bombastic in the brash way that adolescent males often are. But the album also contains several unexpected charms, which explains why it has gone platinum.”
Back at home, aspiring musicians were awed by Silverchair’s international success. “It was extremely exciting to witness,” says Ella Hooper, who, along with her brother Jesse, formed the soon-to-be-massive Killing Heidi in 1996. “I remember Jesse saying, ‘Look! They’re three young dudes from Newcastle. We’re two young kids from the country. If they can do it, we can.’ Witnessing their career blossom, we started to believe that something similar might be possible for us.” Members of many other homegrown bands have echoed Hooper’s sentiment.
The Australian media was inspired, too. In the wake of Tomorrow’s success, local radio stations and magazines started paying more attention to the music emanating from garages and rehearsal spaces around the country, rather than taking their cues from overseas. The Australian music industry grew in size and confidence as the 90s progressed, spawning major events like Homebake and nurturing a slew of chart-topping bands, from the Living End to Jebediah.
The song influenced Australian music in numerous ways – some subtle, others not so. But Tomorrow still resonates today for one simple reason. Says Hooper, “It feels amazing to sing along to. You hold those vowels 'til you pass out!”
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEoKyaqpSerq96wqikaKWlqLake8Cuqq2qkaG2onnCrqOtraKaeqO4zqBma2hhaXyrwctoZ3Fno565t7HRnJ%2BaoaJiwbC5zqupqK9dqbWmedKopaBlpJ2utXnBpZywZZ%2Blsq95wK6qraqRobaiuoyrppyj