Cast your mind back to 1979, mate. The airwaves were dominated by the sweat-drenched, beer-soaked riffs of Aussie pub rock. We were all used to the classic lineup of guitars, bass, and drums banging out tunes at the local boozer. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a band from across the ditch landed in Sydney and completely flipped the script. Mi-Sex wasn’t just another group of blokes with guitars; they were the future, and they brought a sound that felt like it had been beamed down from another galaxy.
Their anthem, Computer Games, didn’t just climb the charts; it smashed through them. I reckon it was the moment Aussie music finally realised it didn’t have to stay inside the pub walls. While other bands were perfecting their blues-rock licks, Mi-Sex were experimenting with the kind of synthesisers that looked like they belonged in a NASA control room. It was strange, it was quirky, and we absolutely loved it. Watching them on Countdown with Molly Meldrum, you could tell this wasn’t business as usual. It was a proper cultural shift.
The real magic, or the sheer madness as some musos might call it, was the production. The band didn’t just play around with these machines; they actually went deep into the heart of a Sydney mainframe computer to capture those icy, robotic bleeps and bloops. Imagine the scene: a bunch of long-haired rockers huddled around a massive, glowing computer unit, trying to coax a melody out of a machine that took up half the room. It was ground-breaking stuff, and it gave Mi-Sex a sonic edge that made everything else on the radio sound like it was stuck in the dark ages.
Back then, the music scene felt like it was shifting under our feet. The pub circuit was our favourite place to be, but Mi-Sex proved that we were ready for something more polished, more electronic, and a bit more mysterious. They paved the way for the synth-heavy eighties, opening doors for bands like INXS and Icehouse to take those electronic textures and run with them. It’s hard to imagine the soundtrack of our lives without that sudden, sharp pivot into the world of synthesised pop.
Even now, when I hear those opening notes of Computer Games, I’m instantly transported back to a time when everything felt possible. It’s a track that still holds up, sounding just as crisp and daring today as it did when it first hit the telly. Mi-Sex caught lightning in a bottle, using technology to bridge the gap between rock and the digital dawn. It’s a bloody brilliant piece of history, isn’t it? Makes you realise just how much heart went into those early experiments. Next time you’re spinning your favourite old records, do yourself a favour and give Mi-Sex a proper listen—you might just hear the future all over again.