Human Nature

Drawing from the vocal harmony approach that defined boy bands in that era, Human Nature rose to become Australia’s top-selling pop act from the 1990s onward, exceeding the commercial reach of their overseas counterparts Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, and Boyzone.

Andrew Tierney, Michael Tierney, Phillip Burton, and Toby Allen first formed as 4Trax in 1989 while still students at a New South Wales agricultural high school. Andrew, Burton, and Allen took part in school productions of Godspell and Grease, whereas Michael, Andrew’s younger brother, performed in school choirs and appeared in an opera. Performing as 4Trax, the quartet moved from busking on Sydney streets to collecting three awards for excellence in live performance within the adult club circuit. Concluding that further gains in that entertainment sphere were limited, they began mailing demo recordings to multiple record labels. Accounts indicate that Sony signed them immediately after an on-site rendition of “People Get Ready” inside the chief executive’s office, at which time the group adopted the name Human Nature.

Although earlier Australian acts such as CDB, Kulcha, and Past to Present had explored R&B vocal territory, none had mounted a serious challenge in the decade’s prevailing vocal pop trend. Human Nature filled that opening. In addition to the harmonies that caught Sony’s attention, they contributed original material alongside songs supplied by professional writers. Their debut single, “Got It Goin’ On,” marked their first studio session. The resulting album, Telling Everybody, achieved four-times platinum status and secured opening slots on major tours by Michael Jackson and Celine Dion. By the release of their second album, the members had already circled the globe repeatedly.

Counting Down emerged from recording sessions held across Sydney, Los Angeles, and London, pairing the original production team with additional international songwriters and producers. Within Australia, the combination of Human Nature’s harmonies with John Farnham’s voice and stature produced one of 1997’s biggest local hits, “Every Time You Cry.” That success, together with a stage production of Grease and George Martin’s all-star Beatles tribute tour, risked repositioning the group as an adult-oriented ensemble rather than a teen pop act.

Human Nature rejected any such pivot with their third album, titled simply Human Nature, thereby reaffirming their foundational focus. Working in London, Stockholm, and New York, the band collaborated with producers and writers whose credits also included Westlife, Billie Piper, Spice Girls, 5ive, Britney Spears, and Backstreet Boys. A separate songwriting session involved Gary Barlow, formerly of Take That, signaling their intent to compete at that level. From the late 1990s forward, the group issued multiple further albums, among them the Motown project Reach Out: The Motown Record in 2005 and its 2006 successor, Dancing in the Street: The Songs of Motown II. This sequence of Motown covers concluded with Get Ready in late 2007. The following year they returned with A Symphony of Hits, featuring orchestral reworkings of earlier material arranged by the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. To mark the release, Human Nature performed selections with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House in December.

Beginning in 2009, the ensemble launched an extended residency in Las Vegas centered on their Motown repertoire, sustaining it for six years. During that period they continued releasing recordings, including their tenth album, Vegas: Songs from Sin City, in 2010, on which bass singer Toby Allen assumed lead vocals on several tracks for the first time. Subsequent releases comprised The Christmas Album in 2013 and Jukebox in 2014. The latter consisted of covers drawn from the 1950s and 1960s plus the original track “End of Days.” They followed with its sequel, Gimme Some Lovin’: Jukebox Vol. 2, in 2016, which attained platinum certification. The Jukebox series also prompted a new chapter of their Las Vegas engagement at the Venetian Resort Hotel & Casino, where they filmed the PBS special Jukebox in Concert.