Happy 25th Anniversary to Christine Anu’s debut album Stylin’ Up, originally released May 1, 1995.
For many people outside of Australia, their first interaction with Australian singer Christine Anu was via her powerful performance of her Australian hit “Island Home” at the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and again at the opening ceremony of the Summer Paralympics in the same year. For those of us in Australia, Anu had been on our musical radar from her time as a backing singer for The Rainmakers and then on a grander, more commercial scale, with the release of her 1995 debut album Stylin’ Up.
Christine Anu really is an Australian national treasure. The reason for this is many and varied, but one of the most important reasons is not only for her phenomenal voice, but the representation she gave and continues to give Indigenous Australians. Hailing from the Torres Strait Islands which sit at the top of far North Queensland, Anu had an agenda placed firmly in her sights when making Stylin’ Up: to bring her culture to the rest of the world. And she did.
The album’s lead single “Monkey And The Turtle” was released in October 1994 and set the tone for what was to come. The song features the language of Anu’s mother’s heritage from Saibai Island in the Torres Strait and is a nursery rhyme from the region that tells the tale of two close friends, a monkey and a turtle who steal bananas from a plantation. At a concert, Anu herself explained the meaning of the song: “They get caught trespassing by the boss who shoots them both dead, a very grim lesson in morality for kids. Do not steal from people, don’t trespass, don’t take things from other people’s country that don't belong to you.” The transformation from nursery rhyme to song was vitally needed and a welcome change to the Australian musical landscape.
The album’s second single was the aforementioned “Island Home,” a song penned by Australian musician Neil Murray and was originally recorded by his band, the Warumpi Band. The band, which was made up of Australian and Indigenous musicians, recorded “Island Home” as a reference to the band’s lead singer, George Burarrwanga’s home, Elcho Island, off the coast of the Northern Territory. Anu’s version changed some of the lyrics to represent her Torres Strait heritage, which for many fans of the original version, did not sit too well. Needless to say, the song is a major part of Australia’s cultural fabric and in 2016 was rightfully inducted into the National Film and Sound Archive’s (NFSA) Sounds of Australia registry, ensuring its legacy and preservation for generations to come.
The uptempo anthemic third single “Party” gave Anu her highest chart presence (Number 20 on the Australian singles chart) and added an extra dimension to her album by way of a more mainstream pop song. The album’s fourth and final single “Come On” failed to chart, but did pick up two Aria Music Awards in 1996 (Best Female Artist and Best Indigenous Release). “Come On,” much like “San E Wireless” evoke a feeling of a young Neneh Cherry from her 1989 debut album Raw Like Sushi, and yet they are uniquely Anu’s at the same time. Identity was more important than the sellout for Anu on this album and it shows.
It is most definitely safe to say that Anu and Mushroom Records took an incredibly bold chance by promoting Anu as a pop star to the masses, whilst ensuring her cultural identity stayed intact and more importantly, respected. There are two incredibly beautiful homages to Anu’s heritage on Stylin’ Up (“Tama Oma” and “Sik O”) which both showcase the importance of traditional languages form the Torres Strait, and seamlessly connect the rest of the album.
Christine Anu has meant so much to so many in Australia. Much like those who have come before her (Yothu Yindi, Ruby Hunter, Marlene Cummins and Shellie Morris amongst others), she has remained true to herself and her people, ensuring that the path well-trodden would be that little bit better for those that have come after her (Jessica Mauboy, Thelma Plum, Casey Donovan and Marcus Corowa).
Stylin’ Up is a reflection of a woman, an indigenous woman, who wasn’t afraid to buck the trend and stand true in her beliefs, her identity and her people. She inched indigenous culture that little bit closer to the masses through music, something that she herself has spoken of in the past.
I remember many years ago sitting front row at one of Anu’s concerts. She was singing a lot of material from Stylin’ Up and some Aretha Franklin covers too. As the show drew to a close, she sat on a stool and explained some of the stories behind her music and then ended with this beautiful piece of wisdom: “When people love music, they will find a way to be engaged by it, it's a very subtle and clever way of teaching someone your language.”
Engaged. Educated. Enriched.
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