GRANT McLENNAN was arguably one of the finest songwriters ever to emerge from the Australian music scene. McLennan and the Go-Betweens, the band he co-founded in 1980 with Robert Forster, represented a pinnacle in Antipodean popular music.

McLennan and Forster formed a potent songwriting partnership. Forster’s approach was edgy and brooding; McLennan’s style more wistful and romantic. Yet they complemented each other so perfectly that they were frequently described as “Australia’s Lennon and McCartney”.

Lack of commercial success led to the band’s break-up in 1989. The six albums they released in their first incarnation clocked up a total of two weeks on the charts between them, and their intelligent, grown-up songs seemed far divorced from the superficiality of the decade that spawned them. When they eventually reformed in 2000, the band’s drummer, Lindy Morrison, declined to take part, claiming that nobody had cared in the first place, except “a fistful of wanky journalists and some students”.

The same could have been said of the Velvet Underground and, like that band, the Go-Betweens enjoyed a devoted cult following and an influence that went far beyond their meagre record sales.

In the 1990s McLennan released a series of fine solo records before reuniting with Forster to produce three more Go-Betweens albums. By then the band was also finally getting the wider recognition it had been denied earlier, as a new generation of successful groups such as Belle and Sebastian and Sleater Kinney, whose members appeared on their comeback recording, paid tribute to the Go-Betweens’ influence.

Born in Rockhampton, Queensland, in 1958, McLennan met Forster in the late 1970s when both were university students in Brisbane. Musically it was the era of punk, but the two tracks on their first single as the Go-Betweens, Lee Remick and Karen, owed more to the influence of Bob Dylan. After moving to Melbourne, the band’s debut album, Send Me a Lullaby, appeared in 1981 and marked them out as fine purveyors of traditional, melodic pop.

In Britain the album was picked up by the ever astute Geoff Travis, who put it out on the Rough Trade label and persuaded the band, augmented by Morrison, to relocate to London.

McLennan took a house in Fulham with his fellow Australian Nick Cave and set about recording the second Go-Betweens album, Before Hollywood (1983). Among the highlights was his autobiographical Cattle and Cane, recently voted by the Australian Performing Rights Association as one of the ten greatest Australian songs of all time.

By the time the band recorded its third album, Spring Hill Fair (1984), they had moved to Sire Records and been joined by the bass player Robert Vickers. Despite critical acclaim, a continuing lack of sales led to yet another label move, to Beggar’s Banquet for Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express (1986). This was regarded as the band’s first masterpiece, and singles from it, such as Spring Rain and Right Here, garnered considerable radio play, but a chart breakthrough remained elusive.

By 1987 and the fifth album, Tallulah, disillusionment was setting in. McLennan and Forster attempted to rejuvenate the group with the addition of the violinist Amanda Brown, but after 16 Lovers Lane in 1988, the Go-Betweens called it a day.

Back in Australia, McLennan set up home in Cairns, northern Queensland, and took his time deciding what to do next. An experimental album under the name Jack Frost recorded with Steve Kilbey, of The Church, appeared in 1990 before McLennan embarked on a series of more traditional solo releases under the name G. W. McLennan. Watershed appeared in 1991 and was followed by Fireboy (1993), Horsebreaker Star (1995) and In Your Bright Ray (1997).

All the solo efforts showcased McLennan’s warm, lush songwriting style to fine effect, but by the late 1990s talk of a Go-Betweens reunion was on the cards. The group’s six albums were reissued in 1996, and three years later a best-of collection, Bellavista Terrace, further reignited interest in them as one of the great lost groups of the 1980s.

The enthusiastic reception for the compilation paved the way for their comeback the following year with The Friends of Rachel Worth, a return that recalled the band’s finest pop moments. Bright Yellow Bright Orange followed in 2003 and Oceans Apart appeared two years later.

Showing no sign of the mid-life burnout that seems to afflict so many songwriters in their forties, the three reunion albums were widely acknowledged as containing some of McLennan’s most powerful songwriting.

He died suddenly at his home in Brisbane. He is survived by his partner Emma.

Grant McLennan, singer and songwriter, was born on February 12, 1958. He died on May 6, 2006, aged 48.