In the early 90s, Melbourne's Frente were little fish swimming against the tide. Guitars were loud, vocals were raw, bands were angry and Nirvana were rock's reluctant, tormented heroes. As grunge swept the world, Frente bravely arrived with gentle, rhythmic folk pop songs which instantly struck a chord with noise-weary audiences and took them to the top of the charts for their debut LP Marvin The Album.
Although singer Angie Hart was still a teenager and Frente was her first band, the songwriting partnership she formed with guitarist Simon Austin was unique. Frente had a freshness and innocence about their music that was starkly different to the disaffection of grunge. The band's sweet first single 'Labour Of Love' placed in triple j's Hottest 100 of 1991 and, all of the sudden, Frente were everywhere. They quickly followed up their debut single with their ARIA award winning 'Ordinary Angels' and a platinum selling EP Clunk.
As the band began touring overseas, Frente looked to create international interest with reworked versions of 'Ordinary Angels', released on a limited edition 7" single called Ordinary Angles. The song was given three new dance-pop remixes by producer George Dracoulias, a big name at Rick Rubin's hip hop empire Def Jam Records. It was a big leap for the band and a song which Angie Hart says began in fight brought on by the pressure of their early success.
“Simon Austin and I wrote 'Ordinary Angels' together kind of on a dare. We were trying to get signed to a record company and it was all very big time and very exciting. We stupidly promised them that we would deliver a brand-new song over the course of two days of recording. That was disastrous because we just panicked as soon as we said we would do it.
We were staying at a friend of Simon's mum's, in her apartment in Sydney, sitting on the floor on the carpet, petting the cat. And we just flipped out and had a massive argument. It was almost the end of the band before we started. We were in tears. Just as we were about to give up, this song just began and we wrote the whole thing while we were sobbing. It was very dramatic. It came out line by line, like a jigsaw puzzle. I think with really great songs often there's like this kind of earthquake before they happen.
It was it was built from the bottom up starting with the first line 'You get the world for your birthday, baby'. The song is really about giving ourselves such great expectations. We were pushing ourselves really hard. We began writing and we were just looking at each other and knowing that we were writing about it being okay to be kind of ordinary. So, we were writing about the world being fantastic and us just being human.
Before this, we'd released the Labour Of Love EP and we were definitely getting some attention at that stage. So, we were feeling like something was happening. Simon and I both love words. We were rhythmic in our writing style, so every syllable mattered. We really liked hip hop and I think we really liked the idea of being rhythmic without words. I guess that was my way of creating some sort of an instrument for myself.
Simon put down a very strong rhythm right from the start of the song, which really keeps the whole song very positive and light. The single was produced by Daniel Denholm and it was really fancy for us. He's a really great producer and he'd worked with string arrangements and really understood quantizing complex beats together with the music. He and Simon nerded out like you wouldn't believe. But it really took us up a new level.” From: https://www.abc.net.au/listen/doublej/music-reads/features/frente-ordinary-angels-ordinary-angles-remixes-single-7-inch/13474142
