TMN RETROSPECTIVE REPORT: Savage Garden hit #1 in the US – 1997

TMN celebrates two decades in this ever-shifting music industry by taking a look back at the key moments – both triumphant and tumultuous – in the Australian music business.

1997
SAVAGE GARDEN HIT #1 IN THE US

It was a classified advertisement in Brisbane street press Time Off that first brought Darren Hayes to guitarist Daniel Jones’ attention. The two of them schlepped around Gold Coast’s covers scene for a year as part of a five-piece, before splintering off into an originals duo, tucking away enough songs to fill a demo cassette, which the hopeful duo sent to 150 record labels around the world. They received one reply, but it was the right one, from TMN founder John Woodruff, who instantly recognised the tape’s quality. Woodruff took on management, and the duo signed to Roadshow Music in Australia.

After their Roxette-esque debut single I Want You became the highest selling Australian track of 1996, the international labels that passed over the band the previous year came calling. The duo signed to Columbia in the US, landing two singles inside the top 25 of the Billboard Hot 100, before Truly Madly Deeply enjoyed a two-week stay at the top of the US chart, remaining in the US Hot Adult Contemporary chart for a record- breaking 123 weeks, a record they broke again less than two years later, when their second US #1 – I Knew I Loved You – surpassed the previous song’s success and sat at #1 for three weeks in 1999. No Australian artist would hit #1 in the US again until Gotye in 2012.

Our year on year reports are published courtesy of the Australian Music Industry Quarterly magazine. For your free copy click here