AN OPEN LETTER TO DONTSTOPTHEPOP

"Dear DSTP

Did you have to be there? Was that it? If you weren't there, is it possible to be so dismissive, so airy fairy towards the mightiest five headed pop dervish Australia has ever produced?

Did you have to be there to understand that whenever life was tough, Girlfriend with a few songs and sentences and spins could make it all better? That they made EVERYTHING better?

That Jacqui, Melanie, Robyn, Lorinda and Siobhann were a real fully functioning sisterhood of pop, manufacturing be damned?

Did you have to be there in 1993 when boys in cars and mainstream radio were playing "Rape Me" and grunge was depressing everyone, and in a blistering punk rock move, Girlfriend brought out a song called "I Love This World?"

Did you have to be there for the apex of Australian pop, when Melissa begat Girlfriend begat Euphoria - when somehow, someway, Take It From Me went straight to #1, and then Love You Right knocked it off, and the nation felt different, like we could finally knock off our punk rock disgraceful past?

Did you have to be there when you argued and argued over your favourite member with such passion, you lost track of an entire day?

Did you have to be there for the most amazing, touching ballad pop has produced, "Without You", when the girls backed Robyn up in the night of need with a simple touch of the shoulder?

Did you have to be there when they were mentioning "Girl Power" 5 years before the Spice Girls?

Did you have to be there when in a final majestic flourish, "Sooner Or Later" by the Robyn less GF4 clawed and bit it's way up to #6 on the charts, briefly, beautifully outselling Pearl Jam and Silverchair as a last gasp to the wonderful pop era?

Did you have to be there when they were the first band in the world to include a CD Rom component on their singles?

Did you have to be there for the amazing Japanese album, sung in 1/2 Japanese, 1/2 English, that sassed and zipped through so wonderfully you couldn't work out why it wasn't #1 for years?

Did you have to be there when Robyn pulled out one of the most wonderful pieces of music ever, Sick With Love, and you forgave her for leaving?

Or for the final single, (Need Luv) To Make The Sex Right, with the frog cover and the loud, hypnotic beats that sounded like they could yet come back?

Did you have to be there when you felt much better, and thought that summer would last forever, and Girlfriend were so mighty, so infectious, so wonderful that you couldn't wait to see what they did next, every poster was stuck so carefully on the wall, and even though they split up, that your idol Siobhann ended up working in a shoe shop, you never lost the feeling that they were YOUR band, and you would love them forever in a way you would never love another?

Maybe you did have to be there, but I can't stand by and have the most wonderful pop band Australia has ever produced dismissed like they didn't matter, as if they were clowns in amusing hats - oh they mattered, more than you could ever, ever know

S Fan 4 Life

Alyson"