''What a Life!'' is the second studio album by Australian band

Divinyls Divinyls () were an Australian rock band that were formed in Sydney in 1980. The band primarily consisted of vocalist Chrissy Amphlett and guitarist Mark McEntee. Amphlett garnered widespread attention for performing on stage in a school uni ...

, released in October 1985 by Chrysalis Records. The album is a genre of

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

and new wave songs—written by Divinyls members

Christina Amphlett Christine Joy Amphlett (; 25 October 1959 – 21 April 2013) was an Australian singer, songwriter and actress, best known as the frontwoman of the rock band Divinyls. She was notable for her brash, overtly sexual persona and subversive hum ...

and

Mark McEntee Mark McEntee ( ; born 16 July 1955) is an Australian musician, best known as the lead guitarist and co-founder of the Australian rock band, Divinyls. Early life McEntee was born in Perth, Western Australia, and went to Christ Church Grammar Sc ...

History

After touring and promoting in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, Divinyls came back to Australia to begin the follow-up to '' Desperate'', with Mark Opitz producing again. They produced three songs including "Don't You Go Walking" and "Motion" but Amphlett and McEntee were not satisfied so they returned to the road, replacing drummer Richard Harvey with J.J. Harris, and wrote more songs. A year later they again tried recording, this time with the producer

Gary Langan Gary Michael Langan (born 19 April 1956) is an English engineer, record producer, mixer and musician. Biography His career started at age 18 when he worked as an assistant engineer at Sarm East Studios, learning the craft from Gary Lyons and M ...

who was the founding member of the band

Art of Noise Art of Noise (also The Art of Noise) were an English avant-garde synth-pop group formed in early 1983 by engineer/producer Gary Langan and programmer J. J. Jeczalik, along with keyboardist/arranger Anne Dudley, producer Trevor Horn, and mus ...

. He brought a sophisticated, high-tech edge to Divinyls' sound, but a full album failed to get done. Recording stopped once more.Chrissy Amphlett & Larry Writer, "Pleasure and Pain: My Life", Hodder Australia, 2005. Eventually, Amphlett and McEntee made a journey to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

, where they asked pop producer

Mike Chapman Michael Donald Chapman (born 13 April 1947) is an Australian-American record producer and songwriter who was a major force in the British pop music industry in the 1970s. He created a string of hit singles for artists including The Sweet, Suz ...

to come back with them to Australia and finish their second album. Chapman ended up producing only two songs: " Pleasure and Pain" (which he also co-wrote with

Holly Knight ''Ilex'' (), or holly, is a genus of over 570 species of flowering plants in the family Aquifoliaceae, and the only living genus in that family. ''Ilex'' has the most species of any woody dioecious angiosperm genus. The species are evergreen o ...

) and "Sleeping Beauty". The album was released almost two years after recording began. It reached No.4 in Australia and No.91 in the US, while "Pleasure and Pain" hit No.11 in Australia and the lower reaches of the Top 100 in the US. Two later singles, "

Sleeping Beauty ''Sleeping Beauty'' (french: La belle au bois dormant, or ''The Beauty in the Sleeping Forest''; german: Dornröschen, or ''Little Briar Rose''), also titled in English as ''The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods'', is a fairy tale about a princess cu ...

" and "

Heart Telegraph "Heart Telegraph" is a song by Australian rock band Divinyls. It was released in 1986 as the fifth and final single from their second studio album ''What a Life! (album), What a Life!''. The song was written by Christina Amphlett and Mark McEntee a ...

", charted moderately in Australia but did little in the US. Despite its Australian success, Chrysalis declared the album a failure.

Reception

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...

'' described the music as "loud and hard-edged, as purely physical as any metal band, but tempered with ... swaggering rowdiness". ''Ram'' magazine noted the band's writing had a newfound maturity, "verbalising adult fears and lingering adolescent yearnings".

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

's later review said many of the album tracks were hardly memorable and that the band's best strengths lay both in Amphlett's unique vocal delivery, and McEntee's bottom-heavy, grungy, guitar work.

Track listing

Australian release

US release

Charts

Personnel

– vocals, writer *

– vocals, guitar, keyboards, writer * Richard Harvey – drums * Bjarne Ohlin – vocals, guitar, keyboards, writer * Rick Grossman – bass, writer * Rick Chadwick – keyboards, programming * Mars Lazaar – keyboards, programming * Mary Bradfield Taylor – background vocals * Simon Darlow – keyboards, programming * Charles Fisher – producer, mixer *

– producer, writer *

– producer *

Mark Opitz Mark Opitz (born 1952) is an Australian record producer and audio engineer. He started his career with Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in 1971. He has produced AC/DC, the Angels, Australian Crawl, Cold Chisel, Divinyls and INXS. He ...

– producer * Tom Colley – engineer * John Bee – engineer * Richard Meuke – engineer

Sales

References

{{Authority control 1985 albums Chrysalis Records albums Divinyls albums Albums produced by Mike Chapman Albums produced by Mark Opitz