Frente!
Austin and Hart embarked on a romance, the subsequent disintegration of which caused considerable tension within the band, especially as the end of their relationship came just as Frente! was achieving success. The band's 1991 self-funded EP, Whirled, spawned this success with the song "Labour of Love". The song achieved national airplay on Australia's youth radio station Triple J and ranked highly in the Hottest 100 for 1991, a listener's poll. This led to Frente! being signed to Mushroom Records' White label. With great pressure on Austin and Hart to produce a hit, the tension led to an argument between the pair, which in turn resulted in the song "Ordinary Angels". This was the first track on their May 1992 EP Clunk and it launched them into mainstream success in the Australian music scene, with the song reaching number 3 in the ARIA Charts.
With the success of "Ordinary Angels", Frente! was given the opportunity to make their debut album and Prince's producer Michael Koppelman was drafted in for the project. The resulting Marvin the Album was released on 23 November 1992, with the single "Accidentally Kelly Street" quickly rising to number 3 in the ARIA Charts where it remained for much of the Australian summer. An environment of saturation media, with the song being aired very frequently on television and radio in Australia, led to Frente! experiencing a public backlash similar to that experienced by Jodi Phillis's band Clouds.
In 1993 Hart gained brief fame and notoriety by posing near nude for Juice, a now-defunct Australian music magazine . Following an appearance on Home and Away in 1993, Hart, with the rest of Frente!, went overseas to pursue success in Europe and America, turning their backs on the hostilities offered by their own country.
Frente! achieved unexpected US chart success with Austin's pared-down cover version of New Order's "Bizarre Love Triangle". Originally intended as a B-side, the overwhelming interest in the song led to it being the first single from the 1994 US release of Marvin the Album.
Mark Picton was sacked from the band in 1993 and Tim O'Connor left in 1995 due to the pressures of touring. They were replaced by Alastair Barden and Bill McDonald respectively. McDonald left Rebecca's Empire to join Frente!.
In between the first and second Frente! albums, Hart lent her vocal to a single by an Australian studio outfit, Pop! featuring Angie Hart. The song was titled "Tingly" (#92) and was released in late 1995.
After three years of touring, Frente! were led back to the studio in 1995 by Mushroom to produce their second album. The extended touring had largely extinguished Hart and Austin's desire for songwriting, and they arrived in Spain with only a handful of songs for producer Cameron McVey, husband of Hart's idol, the iconic Swedish pop singer Neneh Cherry. At the time, Hart stated that being on tour constantly had left them with no lives to write about. This is evidenced in Hart's lyrics of the 1994 songs "Lonely" and "Explode". McVey immediately broke up the Hart/Austin songwriting partnership, leaving Austin in the studio while he worked with Hart to write a number of the songs featured on the final product, Shape, which was released in July 1996.
In June 1996, Frente! embarked on their world tour to promote Shape, beginning in Australia. By January 1997 when they appeared at the Melbourne Big Day Out, the band members gave in to their exhaustion and went their separate ways. Hart left Australia for the US almost immediately, and lived there for the next eight years.
Read more about this topic: Angie Hart