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soft 'n' sexy soound

  • coral snakes 2025The 2025 Coral Snakes.  Meredith O'Shea photo.

    If you were alive to Australian music and culture in the mid-1990s, you couldn't avoid Dave Graney. It wasn't so much that his band dominated the charts - but 'The Soft 'n' Sexy Sound” was unavoidable.

    Having been nominated in the Best Male Artist at the 1996 ARIA Music Awards, he wore a hot pink crushed velvet suit (beneath a toe-curling wig) to the award. To the evident astonishment of presenter Chrissy Amphlett, Graney had beaten John Farnham, Paul Kelly,and Tex Perkins to the top spot. Dave began his unrehearsed acceptance speech by declaring himself, with deep irony, to be “King of Pop'” 

    Such TV moments are pivotal, iconic, magnificent (and easily locatable on YouTube). Right up there, in my view, with Iggy Pop bouncing up and down on a chair in the “Countdown” studio calling Molly Meldrum “dogface”, and innumerable Norman Gunston interviews. The difference is that Graney possesses an immutable grace, style and a vein of rich, droll humour.