...UH! TEARS BABY

Released 35 years ago today (1 November 1990): the rollicking single “I Touch Myself” by Australian post-punk band Divinyls. This was a fluke late-career international hit for the veteran band and weirdly, it ultimately led to a backlash. The subsequent album (simply entitled Divinyls) and follow-up singles didn’t chart well, and it created a perception of Divinyls as “one hit wonders.” It would be six more years before Divinyls issued another album (Underworld in 1996) which was solely released in Australia, and then they disbanded. More happily, the accompanying video for “I Touch Myself” - featuring sultry frontwoman Christina Amphlett pouting and cavorting, veiled sadomasochistic references and shots of hands reaching crotch-ward only to cut away at the last moment - is fondly remembered by many. Funnily enough, it was directed by action movies director Michael Bay of Transformers infamy. When I interviewed Amphlett in 1990 for my university newspaper she was disdainful recalling their creative disputes. “The director of the video was very square, and he was a bit of a pain in the ass because you’d walk out in different clothes and stuff and it was all a bit much for him. He had this (shot of a) girl throwing a champagne bottle and crying. What that had to do with “I Touch Myself” I don’t know. It was a bit of a battle, but maybe it was a good thing he was square because between us and him it balanced out.”

Photographed by Harry Papadopoulos

Clare Grogan *March 17, 1962

Clare Grogan (Altered Images) and Siouxsie Sioux (Siouxsie and the Banshees)

📷 Norman Seeff/Portland Museum of Art, Maine/Judy Glickman Lauder Collection

📷 Kishin Shinoyama

📷 Loomis Dean—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Valerie Leon