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Blender magazine all out of love for Air Supply in latest list (Canberra Times)
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Blender magazine all out of love for Air Supply in latest list
Robert Messenger
Thursday, 11 May 2006
Australian soft rock duo Air Supply has been deflated by US magazine Blender - as the 10th worst artist in popular music history.
Blender said Air Supply were, "The sound of eunuchs sobbing."
Air Supply - made up of English-born Graham Russell and Melbourne tenor Russell Hitchcock - have been together 31 years and are currently on tour in India, playing concerts in Delhi and Bangalore today and tomorrow.
The pair had a string of ballad hits throughout the English-speaking world in the late 1970s and early '80s. They were one of the first Australian groups to make it big in the US, with three top five singles in 1980 alone: Lost in Love, Every Woman in the World and All Out of Love. In 1983 they had a No2 hit in the US with Making Love Out of Nothing at All. Other hits included Just as I Am, The Power of Love, Lonely Is and One More Chance.
At that time Air Supply were matching The Beatles' mid-60s success rate. None of that, however, impresses Blender, which says, "Disproving the theory that lightning never strikes twice in the same place, Air Supply contained not one but two mewling, lovesick softies whose name was Russell.
"In the early '80s, the Australian duo's gutless ballads music - so remorselessly fey it made [US Arena rock band] Journey sound like [heavy metal group] Danzig - sent a generation of jilted lovers toppling into depression that was as clinical as the Russells' music.
"Mercifully, though, by the end of the decade, the pair had cried themselves to sleep."
Blender is wrong on that last count. Air Supply became very popular in Asia and still tour the US and Canada, as well as the West Indies, India, Chinese Taipei and Korea.
Another Australian band to get a dishonourable mention in Blender's latest "worst ever" lists is INXS over the replacement of its lead singer.
INXS recently found, through reality television show Rock Star, a replacement for Michael Hutchence in J.D.Fortune. Hutchence died in 1997. Starship's 1985 song We Built This City remains "worst song ever".