holding onto angus and julia

Since I decided I wanted to be a music journalist, I’ve had to listen to music with a more critical ear than I have in the past. As a result, I no longer really have guilty pleasures in my listening tastes, as there needs to be some musical merit in even the poppiest of bubblegum tunes for me to find it bearable to listen to (hopefully this isn’t coming across as an indie elitist spiel; I imagine I’m far less discerning than most other people who takes their music tastes semi-seriously).

I first heard Angus and Julia Stone on a friend’s iPod while we were travelling through Cuba in mid-2008. He only had a handful of their songs and I constantly bugged him to hand it over whenever I wanted to hear ‘Mango Tree’. Which I did, relentlessly.

The release of Down the Way was semi-problematic in my then-relationship, with my love of Angus and Julia Stone regularly prompting Bon Jovi to deride the fact that they rarely mention their musical influences in interviews. He may have been right, but I never really cared one way or the other.

To me, it didn’t matter if Angus and Julia Stone want to pretend that they create their music with no regard for the artists and songs they admire. I don’t know anyone who counts the Stones amongst their favourite musicians who thinks that they are the most able artists they’ve ever heard – this isn’t why people listen to Angus and Julia Stone.

When I saw the pair at Thebarton Theatre earlier this year, I found that the anecdotes they prefaced many of their songs with was what distinguished them from other performers. Both were open about the love and the heartbreak that had inspired certain songs, and dedicated them to those that (might) have hurt them. Julia even had tears in her eyes when she sang ‘Hold On’ (or possibly ‘I’m Not Yours’…my memory is not what it used to be).

Angus and Julia Stone are hardly forging new musical frontiers, but the reason we love them is that they mean every word they sing. They lay their feelings down more simply and yet more eloquently than most of us can, or will.

I couldn’t be happier for them that they received three ARIA Awards this year. Their music may not be changing the world, but they’ve nursed me through more sad nights than just about anybody else.

I’ll taste the devil’s tears, drink from his soul, but I’ll never give up the Stones.

(Image credits: 1.)