Missy Higgins - TheSpecial Two EP

Tue 5th Apr, 2005 in Music Reviews

You can imagine the conversation in the Eleven: A Music Company boardrooms.

“Surely we don’t need to release another single from The Sound Of White? Doesn’t half of Australia already own it?”

“Yeah, they do. But don’t forget, we could release a blank CD-R, call it The Sound Of Silence and it’d probably win an ARIA for Best Ambient Recording.”

“OK, let’s just release an album track which have been released twice before, jazz it up a bit to make it more radio-friendly, and people will lap it up.”

Thankfully, you don’t need me to sing the praises of Missy Higgins, because you already know all about her. You know she’s talented, charming, unpretentious and one of the few artists around who can comfortably fit into both the Homebake lineup and the Fox FM Christmas party.

The Special Two is an old track, originally appearing in raw form on Higgins’ eponymous debut EP. Miles away from the poptastic hits of Scar and Ten Days, the album version of The Special Two is rich with emotional depth, rising piano lines. The radio version contained here loses some of the poignancy of the original mix with much of the piano tinkering removed and the drums pushed more prominently into the mix. But the rising chorus reaching the crescendo of “we will only need each other, we’ll bleed together / our hands will not be taught to hold another’s, ‘cause we’re the special two” is still touching.

The real joys with Higgins’ single releases, however, are the quality b-sides. Drop The Mirror and Blind Winter are both good enough to have made the final album cut. Blind Winter in particular is the sort of dark, edgy pop song that Delta Goodrem seems hell-bent on releasing. A piano groove that never leaves first gear is met with big, booming drums as Higgins howls “I’m just another girl who wants to know just where you think it’s written down, this way that we should go.” There’s even a bit towards the end that sounds like Radiohead’s There There. Which is always nice.

Rounding off the EP, and possibly the release’s highlight, is a live cover of Skyhooks’ You Just Like Me ‘Cause I’m Good In Bed, recorded for Triple J. Sure to both scare Higgins’ newfound MOR adult contemporary fans who in turn were originally intimidated by the band, as well as introduce a whole lot of younger J-philes to the band who wrote Jukebox In Siberia (Coincidentally, Good In Bed was the first song ever played on the then-Sydney only Double J FM, now Triple J. It all comes full circle, eh?)

As if you need me to plug Missy Higgins CDs, anyway. Doesn’t it make you unAustralian to not buy them these days?