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Sep 24, 2025 By Frank Valish

Bloomsbury’s 33 1/3 series of pocket-sized paperbacks examining specific individual albums from throughout music history has recently branched out to an Oceania division, which specifically examines albums from Australia, New Zealand, and the rest of the Oceania region.

Jay Daniel Thompson’s Frogstomp discusses at length the vaunted Silverchair debut. When the album was released in 1995, much of the hype surrounding it revolved around the band’s obvious adopting of American grunge styles, specifically the sound of Pearl Jam, and the fact that the band members—frontman/guitarist Daniel Johns, bassist Chris Joannou, and drummer Ben Gillies—were so young, being only teenagers at the time of the album’s release. Of course, Frogstomp’s lead single, the loud and grunge-tastic “Tomorrow” made waves worldwide and propelled the band into the limelight, from which there was no coming back.

Thompson’s book aims not only to discuss Frogstomp and more broadly its affect on Silverchair and the band’s wider history, but also to put the album in historical context and dispel the lazy notion that Silverchair with its debut were simply grunge poseur wunderkinds. The book may hit closest to home for those who, as Thompson did, grew up in the era when Frogstomp was released, those who suffered through the hype and themselves formed opinions of the band at the time. This reviewer himself keenly remembers needing to buy a gift for a friend and narrowing down the options to Frogstomp and Bush’s own 1994 debut, Sixteen Stone (truth be told, I went with the latter and somewhat regretted it). Either way, Thompson’s book strips away all the fuss and examines an album that’s ultimately, while a product of its time, a worthwhile addition to the mid-’90s musical lexicon. (www.bloomsbury.com)

Author rating: 7/10