When a musician disappears from the public view, most of us would hope they’ve simply opted for a quieter life, rather than struggling in obscurity or walking a darker path into the ugly morass of showbiz. I’m glad that Pete Doherty swapped “crack for camembert” and that Elton John opted for sobriety – though surviving addiction has given John a unique perspective on many things, including toddler tantrums, as he wrote in his memoir: “You think you’re being difficult, my little sausage? Have I ever told you about the time I drank eight vodka martinis, took all my clothes off in front of a film crew and then broke my manager’s nose?”
So it was with a strange sense of relief that I watched this week’s Australian Story about Alex Lloyd, the singer-songwriter behind the 2001 elegiac pop hit Amazing. Twenty-five years ago, it was hard to avoid Lloyd, who has sold more than 1m albums, or Amazing, which was a once-in-a-decade crossover hit that topped the Triple J Hottest 100, was thrashed on commercial radio and eventually went where all good pop songs go to die: television advertising. (Last year, someone even edited Amazing’s Wikipedia page to describe it as “the song from the Woolworths ad that makes everyone want to kill themselves”.)
