Arriving on our shores right around this time thirty years ago was Under the Sun, the second album from Australian band Paul Kelly and the Messengers. It would be close to a year before it gained any traction; I remember hearing the fantastic rocker “Dumb Things” on WPGU quite a bit around the time I was deep in preparation for my oral comprehensive exams in December 88/January 89. Before long I’d purchased the album, and I picked up several others of theirs in the early 90s. They’re uniformly pretty awesome.
Kelly is still highly regarded in his homeland, particularly as a songwriter, and has kept recording as a solo artist through the years. I haven’t seen anything new from him in the US for a long while, however. He had his first #1 album on the Australian charts in 2017.
I also recommend checking out “To Her Door,” also from Under the Sun.
The Music of My Life 