What a Life! is the second studio album by Australian band Divinyls, released in October 1985 by Chrysalis Records. The album is a genre of rock and new wave songs—written by Divinyls members Christina Amphlett and Mark McEntee.
History After touring and promoting in the United States, Divinyls came back to Australia to begin the follow-up to Desperate, with Mark Opitz producing again. They produced three songs including "Don't You Go Walking" and "Motion" but Amphlett and McEntee were not satisfied so they returned to the road, replacing drummer Richard Harvey with J.J. Harris, and wrote more songs. A year later they again tried recording, this time with the producer Gary Langan who was the founding member of the band Art of Noise. He brought a sophisticated, high-tech edge to Divinyls' sound, but a full album failed to get done. Recording stopped once more.Chrissy Amphlett & Larry Writer, "Pleasure and Pain: My Life", Hodder Australia, 2005. Amphlett later said, "It's terrible decision to make because you've just spent all this money and you have to tell the record company, 'sorry, the songs just aren't good enough.' It's so terrible you just want to die."
Eventually, Amphlett and McEntee made a journey to Los Angeles, where they asked pop producer Mike Chapman to come back with them to Australia and finish their second album. Chapman ended up producing only two songs: "Pleasure and Pain" (which he also co-wrote with Holly Knight) and "Sleeping Beauty". The album was released almost two years after recording began. It reached No.4 in Australia and No.91 in the US, while "Pleasure and Pain" hit No.11 in Australia and the lower reaches of the Top 100 in the US. Two later singles, "Sleeping Beauty" and "Heart Telegraph", charted moderately in Australia but did little in the US. Despite its Australian success, Chrysalis declared the album a failure.
Reception
Rolling Stone described the music as "loud and hard-edged, as purely physical as any metal band, but tempered with ... swaggering rowdiness". Ram magazine noted the band's writing had a newfound maturity, "verbalising adult fears and lingering adolescent yearnings". AllMusic's later review said many of the album tracks were hardly memorable and that the band's best strengths lay both in Amphlett's unique vocal delivery, and McEntee's bottom-heavy, grungy, guitar work.
Track listing
Australian release
US release
Charts Chart (1985)PeakpositionAustralian Albums (Kent Music Report) N.B. the Kent Report chart was licensed by ARIA between mid-1983 and 12 June 1988.4US Billboard 20091
Personnel Christine Amphlett – vocals, writer Mark McEntee – vocals, guitar, keyboards, writer Richard Harvey – drums Bjarne Ohlin – vocals, guitar, keyboards, writer Rick Grossman – bass, writer Rick Chadwick – keyboards, programming Mars Lazaar – keyboards, programming Mary Bradfield Taylor – background vocals Simon Darlow – keyboards, programming Charles Fisher – producer, mixer Mike Chapman – producer, writer Gary Langan – producer Mark Opitz – producer Tom Colley – engineer John Bee – engineer Richard Meuke – engineer
Sales
References