Before Hollywood by The Go-Betweens

Before Hollywood, the Go-Betweens' second album, came out on Rough Trade in May 1983, with the Brisbane band recording it in the UK. It was the first of their records where Robert Forster and Grant McLennan split the songwriting straight down the middle, and that tug between two singer-guitarists gives it its restless, slightly off-kilter charm, with Lindy Morrison's drums and Robert Vickers's bass keeping everything spare and springy.

The standout is the shimmering "Cattle and Cane", which reached number 4 as a single and in 2001 was voted among the 30 best Australian songs ever in a poll run by APRA. The album made number 2 on the UK independent chart, and years later McLennan counted it as one of the 2 records that defined the band, prizing its mix of odd and classic songcraft and its underground mood.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.