How Grunge Shaped 'Rage'

There’s never been a more poetic TV show than Rage. If the all-night music video program were a soundscape it would be white noise, if it were a literary style it would be stream of consciousness and if it were to be defined as a music genre, it would be grunge.

For many Australians, Rage was their first contact with game-changing bands like Nirvana, Hole and Pearl Jam. The hazy images of a dusty school gym, gloomy cheerleaders and a depressed looking Kurt Cobain, on Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" helped paint an important shade of apathy onto our youth’s collective conscious.

From its first broadcast in 1987, Rage drew on the idiosyncratic, sludgy ethos of grunge. In fact, the show was going to be called Rage Until you Puke — counterculture and grotty aesthetics always on the agenda. Though the name was shortened, the visceral spirit of body fluids remained incorporated into the logo, its colours inspired by vomit. The opening credits were done on a $800 budget and the iconic voice screaming 'Rage' recorded in less than 10-minutes.

If a logo inspired by vomit and a name alluding to violence was not a clear indication of its intention, the format of the show certainly revealed an anti-consumerist stance. The show churns a wall-to-wall spiral of music videos from midnight until sunrise from Friday into Saturday - no ads, breaks or regular hosts. This formula made it easy for viewers to become sucked into a blackhole of visual extravaganzas and music discoveries. More importantly, it served as an important exploration on the grunge dilemma of art vs. commerce.

This issue of art and commercial success was an important conversation when Nirvana went from underground to mainstream in 1991. MTV exploited the scene for five years until grunge had saturated the market and the youth was over it. By 1996 the music industry treated grunge as a problem child as sales declined and even album sales for Nirvana, Pearl Jam and R.E.M slowed. A year later MTV had culled most of its rock driven programs and a new era of electronica and RnB was introduced to its audiences. MTV never wore it’s flanny again.

But Rage gave zero fucks to this decline in sales. They had no commercial responsibilities and their ratings remained strong.

Throughout the 90s, Rage producers Stephanie Lewis and Narelle Gee kept things predominantly counter-cultural, weird and alternative. In fact, the curation strongly favoured DIY, creative and experimental videos, making it a charming era for music clips. More importantly, it eagerly supported local underground artists such as Magic Dirt, Spiderbait and You am I.

One of Rage’s most unorthodox characteristics was its broadcasting hours. Starting around 11pm on a Friday and finishing around sunrise on a Saturday, Rage provided weekend activity for those not invited to the party, or too young, anxious or stoned to go out. Before YouTube came along, Rage was the original way to spliff and chill.

Regardless of its increasing popularity, the show did not change its schedule. Even when artists as big as Hole, Metallica and Trent Reznor sat on the iconic red chair and curated delightfully alternative music video playlists, the timeslot remained untouched.

In this sense - and prior to the internet - Rage was the most accessible space for Australia’s youth to question capitalism and embrace the counter culture. These were important conversations that were particularly difficult to approach if you grew up in regional or suburban Australia,

Rage gave us a necessary taste of the void - or whatever it is you feel when you’ve been up all night watching hours worth of music videos, the morning birds start chirping and Metallica’s “Enter The Sandman” appears. For many of us, this music video was our first exploration of life and death - we were all collectively the restless young boy in bed, tossing and turning, having nightmares about turning into an old, creepy-looking man, wrinkled and mortal.

Rage almost floats on its own in television, mysterious and liberated from the evil hands of consumerism. Thirty years later and with the same logo, the program is now the oldest music television program currently still in production. Though these days you can watch the show online or on your phone through the Rageaholic app, the show was and will always be best experienced at 5am in the morning, sinking into the couch and sleep deprived.