- Australian rock
Australian rock and pop musicians have produced a wide variety of music. While many musicians and bands have had considerable international success, there remains some debate over whether
Australia n popular music really has a distinctive sound. Perhaps the most striking common feature of Australian music, like many other Australian art forms, is the dry, often self-deprecating humor evident in the lyrics. Australian music also tends to distinguish itself from the rock styles of other nations by a heavy focus on melody and complex, reggae- and jazz-inspired rhythms. Even hard rock and heavy metal groups, fromCold Chisel through toBaby Animals andRose Tattoo all had a strong sense of melody and are notable for joyous tunes.Where as the darker-witted alternative / experimental Australian rock can be picked having sharp angler guitars, surrounded with deep vibrant bass as explored in 2006 documentary filmSticky Carpet viewing the Melbourne music scene with The Birthday Party,Cosmic Psychos and The Stabs.Until the late 1960s, many have argued that Australian popular music was largely indistinguishable from imported music: British to begin with, then gradually more and more American in the post-war years. The sudden arrival of the 1960s underground movement into the mainstream in the early 1970s changed Australian music permanently:
Skyhooks were far from the first people to write songs in Australia, by Australians, about Australia, but they "were" the first ones ever to make money doing it. The two best-selling albums ever made (at that time) put Australian music on the map. Within a few years, the novelty had worn off and it became commonplace to hear distinctively Australian lyrics and sometimes sounds side-by-side with the imitators and the imports.Internationally,
AC/DC has come to be perhaps the most well-known Australian rock band. With more than 63 Million sales in the US alone [ [http://www.classic-rock-legends-start-here.com/acdc-discography.html ACDC discography and fact sheet - get a quick dose of ACDC stats ] ]1950s to early 1960s: the "First Wave" of Australian rock
In the mid-1950s American
rockabilly androck and roll music was taken up by local musicians and it soon caught on with Australian teens, through movies, records and from 1956, television. EMI had dominated the Australasian record market since the end of WWII, and they made British music a powerful force in the late Fitiies and Sixties with signings like Cliff Richard & The Shadows,The Beatles ,The Hollies andCilla Black . EMI (Australia) also locally distributedDecca (The Rolling Stones' label) as well as the American Capitol label (The Beach Boys ). During this period, however, a number of local companies in Australia expanded into the growing Australian music market, which grew considerably after the emergence of the first wave of American rock'n'roll in the mid-Fifites.In 1951 merchant bank, Mainguard took over a struggling Sydney engineering firm, retooled and relaunched it as
Festival Records . Its main local competition was ARC (theAustralian Record Company ), a former radio production and disc transcription service that established the successful Pacific, Rodeo and Coronet labels and competed with Festival as a manufacturer/distributor in NSW.Several major events took place in 1960. In January Festival Records was purchased by rising young media magnate
Rupert Murdoch , and a few weeks later, in April, ARC was taken over by the American CBS company, who closed the Coronet label and replaced the Australian CBS label.Although most of the major labels were based in Sydney, Melbourne's vibrant dance and concert scene powered a local boom in rock'n'roll and pop music and it became Australia's pop capital in the 1960s. During the Fifties luthier Bill May expanded his
Maton guitar company, becoming one of the first local manufacturers of the new electric guitars and amplifiers. In 1953 precision engineering company White & Gillespie established a custom recording division, which their company history claims was the first in Australia to press records in the new vinyl microgroove format. The new division soon included the W&G label and studio. In 1960 Melbourne consumer electronics companyAstor Electronics created its own record division,Astor Records , which established the Astor label and also became a leading distributor.All through this period Australia was experiencing the effects of a rising tide of migration, as thousands fled the wreckage of postwar Europe. The majority of migrants were from the UK, and many were "Ten Pound Poms" who were able to take advantage of the Australian government's generous £10 assisted-passage fare. Also, for the first time since the Gold Rush large numbers of "non-Anglo" migrants came to Australia from places like Greece, Italy, Malta, Spain, Portugal and eastern European nations like Yugoslavia, Hungary and Poland. These immigrants exerted a powerful influence on all aspects of Australian society and notably in popular music -- many major Australia pop performers of the Sixties were the children of migrants from Europe and the UK.
The arrival of American entrepreneur
Lee Gordon in 1953 marked a major expansion in Australian entertainment. He established himself with a record-breaking tour by American singerJohnnie Ray and Gordon's now-legendary "Big Show" promotions brought to Australia -- in many cases for the first or only time -- dozens of the biggest American jazz, rock and popular stars of the era, includingLouis Armstrong ,Ella Fitzgerald ,Artie Shaw ,Nat King Cole ,Johnnie Ray ,Frank Sinatra ,Bill Haley & The Comets ,Little Richard ,Buddy Holly & The Crickets ,Jerry lee Lewis ,Chuck Berry and many others. He also promoted local talent by using Australian acts as supports on his concerts.In the mid-1950s Festival Records grabbed an early lead in rock'n'roll by releasing
Bill Haley 's "Rock Around The Clock" in Australia in 1956 after the single had been turned down EMI/Decca. It became the biggest-selling hit ever released in Australia up to that time, and its success set Festival on its way to becoming the dominant Australian local record company for the next fifteen years.Soon after, inspired by
Elvis Presley andLittle Richard , Johnny O'Keefe achieved local stardom caftyer his breakthrough appearances on Lee Gordon's Bill Haley tour. O'Keefe carved out a singular career and became a legend of Australian rock music. He hosted one of Australia's first TV pop shows, "Six O'Clock Rock", became a partner in Lee Gordon's record company, Leedon, and was the first Australian rock'n'roll performer to attempt to break into the USA.Iggy Pop acknowledged O'Keefe's importance when he recorded a version of O'Keefe's hit "Real Wild Child" in the 1980s, which he recently re-recorded with successful Australian band Jet. For a few years, O'Keefe and other local rockers like Lonnie Lee & The Leemen, Dig Richards & The R'Jays, Col Joye & The Joy Boys, Alan Dale & The Houserockers, Ray Hoff & The Offbeats, Digger Revell & The Denvermen and New Zealand's Johnny Devlin & The Devils whipped up excitement on a par with their American inspirations.The success of these 'First Wave' rockn'roll acts was brief, and by the early '60s the first boom had begun to fade. Between O'Keefe's last major hit in 1961 and
Billy Thorpe 's first hit in 1964, the local pop scene became noticeably blander and more conservative. The charts were dominated by clean-cut acts, like the members of the so-called "Bandstand family", most of whom were signed to Festival and were regular guests on Australia's leading TV pop show, 'Bandstand' [ [http://www.milesago.com/tv/bandstand.htm MILESAGO - Media- Television - BANDSTAND ] ] , which explicitly aimed to appeal to anyone "from eight to eighty".Nevertheless, there were some exciting undercurrents. A notable alternative to the mainstream pop fare was the emergence of instrumental and 'surf' groups, notably
The Atlantics and The Denvermen [ [http://www.milesago.com/Artists/denvermen.html MILESAGO - Groups & Solo Artists - The Denvermen ] ] in Sydney, and Melbourne's, The Thunderbirds [ [http://www.thethunderbirds.com.au/ The Thunderbirds Rock Band ] ] . Many of the players in these dance bands had come from the jazz scene, and were also strongly influenced by the R&B and "jump" music of performers like Louis Jordan. Others were inspired by figures like American surf guitar maestrosDick Dale andDuane Eddy , and particularly by the all-pervasive popularity of the Shadows and American bandthe Ventures . The Shadows' influence on Australasian pop and rock music of the Sixties and Seventies is still much underrated, and their lead guitaristHank Marvin probably inspired more aspiringelectric guitar ists than any other figure in popular music until the advent ofEric Clapton andJimi Hendrix .These instrumental outfits cut their teeth playing on the booming dance circuits in Australia's major cities and regional towns. Like
Australian jazz bands of the period, these rock'n'roll musicians became extremely accomplished players. Because dance patrons in those days actually danced as couples to traditional rhythms, dance bands in Australia and New Zealand tended to play a much wider variety of musical styles than their American or British jazz counterparts — it was not unusual for Australasian bands of this period to have literally hundreds of songs in their repertoire, ranging from current rock'n'roll and pop hit to the standards of the Twenties, Thirties and Forties.Many of these instrumental groups survived into the Beatles era by adding a lead singer, and several evolved into some of the top bands of that next wave. Surf music and local dance crazes like "The Stomp" were hugely popular at the time, even though they rarely rate a mention these days.
Although most of the Australian and New Zealand pop/rock music of this era went unheard by international audiences, a few Antipodean acts did manage to make an impression overseas. Johnny O'Keefe's attempt to luanch an Americn career failed, but British-born singer
Frank Ifield was one of the very first Australian postwar performers to gain widespread international recognition. He was hugely successful in the UK in the early Sixties, becoming the first performer to have three consecutive #1 hits there, and his biggest hit, "I Remember You" was#1 in the UK and was also a Top 5 hit in the U.S.A. Singer comedian and artistRolf Harris also had several novelty hits during this period and went on to become a fixture on British television with his own popular variety show.The Beat boom
Facilitated by the deep cultural, linguistic and economic links between Britain and its former colonies, the Beatles and other
British Invasion groups had a massive impact on the Australasian music scene. Many of these bands toured Australia and New Zealand to wild receptions in the mid-Sixties. When The Beatles' epoch-making 1964 Australian tour arrived inAdelaide , an estimated 300,000 people — about one-third of the city's entire population at that time — turned out to see them as their motorcade made its way from the airport to the city.The tours and recordings by these new 'Beat' groups revitalised the pop genre and inspired scores of new and established groups, who quickly developed a vibrant and distinctive local inflection of the 60s 'beat music' craze.
The Easybeats andThe Bee Gees are probably the best-known acts from this era to gain success outside Australia, but by the mid-Sixties there were literally hundreds of bands working almost every night of the week in Australia and New Zealand.1964 – 1969: "Second Wave"
The period 1964 – 1969 is often classified as the 'Second Wave' of Australian rock. The leading acts of this period include
Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs , pioneering beat duoBobby & Laurie (Australia's first "long-haired" performers),the Easybeats ,Ray Brown & The Whispers ,Tony Worsley & The Fabulous Blue Jays ,the Twilights ,the Loved Ones ,the Masters Apprentices ,MPD Ltd ,Mike Furber & The Bowery Boys ,Ray Columbus & The Invaders ,Max Merritt ,Dinah Lee , Australia's most popular male singerNormie Rowe ,The Groop ,the Groove ,Lynne Randell (who toured America withthe Monkees andJimi Hendrix ),Johnny Young ,John Farnham ,Doug Parkinson ,Russell Morris andRonnie Burns . Also of note were cult acts such asthe Missing Links , the Purple Hearts,The Wild Cherries , The Creatures andthe Throb , who had only limited success at the time but whose 'heavier' sound would exert a significant influence on later bands like The Saints.It was during the '60s that New Zealand performers began to move to Australia in search of wider opportunities. Although their origins are often overlooked (in much the same way that Canadian performers like
Neil Young andJoni Mitchell are routinely classified as "American") these trans-Tasman performers — people likeMax Merritt ,Mike Rudd ,Dinah Lee ,Ray Columbus ,Bruno Lawrence , Dragon andSplit Enz — have exerted a tremendous influence on Australian popular music.Another significant Australian from this period, and one whose importance is only now beginning to be widely recognised, was the critic and journalist
Lillian Roxon (1932–1973), who grew up in Brisbane but who was based in New York from 1959 until her premature death fromasthma . She was a close friend of feminist writerGermaine Greer , photographerLinda McCartney , poetDelmore Schwartz , artistAndy Warhol and many musicians includingLou Reed . Roxon wrote the world's first Rock Encyclopedia, published in 1969, and her writings about pop music and musicians were central to the development of serious rock criticism and rock journalism in the late 1960s and 1970s.By far the most influential and popular music-related publication of this period was the weekly magazine "
Go-Set ", which was published from 1966 to 1974. Founded in Melbourne in 1966 by a group of formerMonash University students includingPhilip Frazer ,Tony Schauble andDoug Panther , "Go-Set" chronicled all of the major events, trends, fads and performers in Australian popular music, as well as featuring regular columns by renowned Melbourne radio DJStan Rofe and Aussie fashion designerPrue Acton ."Go-Set" also published the first [http://au.geocities.com/gosetcharts/index.html national Australian pop charts] in October 1966 (all charts prior to this were state-based) and it gave extensive coverage to overseas musical developments -- it was one of the first international music papers to report on the emergence of
Jimi Hendrix and two staff members -- writerLily Brett and photographerColin Beard -- travelled to the USA and the UK in mid-1967, reporting on the famousMonterey International Pop Festival and the burgeoning music scene in London, as well as chronicling the exploits of Australian musicians overseas includingNormie Rowe andLynne Randell . Another aspect of "Go-Set's" activities was it's exclusive reporting & promotion of Australia's prestigious annual rock band competition,Hoadley's Battle of the Sounds , which ran from 1966 to 1972.Although it was explicitly established as a 'teens and twenties' magazine, in its later years, inspired by newer publications like
Rolling Stone magazine, "Go-Set" took on a more mature presentation, with numerous rock performers includingJim Keays andWendy Saddington writing for the magazine. In 1970 former columnistIan Meldrum scored a world exclusive for "Go-Set" when he interviewedJohn Lennon in London, during which Lennon made his first public announcement that The Beatles were breaking up.As in other countries, independent record labels proliferated during this period. The local branch of the British-owned
EMI company had dominated the Australian record market since the 1920s, but in this period it faced increasing challenges from its rivals, including the Australian arm of the AmericanCBS Records and particularly from the Sydney-basedFestival Records , a division ofRupert Murdoch 'sNews Limited .Festival had its own successful house label, and it also signed valuable distribution deals with some of the most important and successful independent labels of Sixties, notably
Leedon Records (which released the earliest recordings byThe Bee Gees ),Spin Records and the Perth-basedClarion Records . The many hits released on these independent labels comprised a significant part of Festival's total turnover.Other important independent pop labels of this period included the Melbourne-based
W&G Records ,Astor Records -- also a major distributor -- and the shortlivedGo!! Records label, which was set up in conjunction with the popular pop TV seriesThe Go!! Show .Independent studios and production companies began to play an increasingly important role in the local record industry. Arguably the most productive and influential pop studio in Australia at that time was
Armstrong's Studios in Melbourne. Studio owner and engineerBill Armstrong was an industry veteran who had worked for major record labels, radio stations and advertising clients; and his new studio, which opened in 1965, soon became the most sought-after in the country and probably produced more Australian pop hits than any other in this era. It was also one of the first studios in the country to install 8-track and 16-track recorders in the late 1960s and early '70s, and was an important training ground for some of Australia's best engineers and producers includingRoger Savage ,John L. Sayers ,Ern Rose ,John French and many others.One of the first and most important independent production companies was
Albert Productions , which signed bothBilly Thorpe & The Aztecs andThe Easybeats . It was established in 1964 by young music executiveTed Albert , whose family that owned Australia's leading music publishing houseJ. Albert & Son and theMacquarie radio network , which then included leading Sydney AM pop station2UW .Albert Productions scored many major Australian hits (released locally on EMI's
Parlophone label) with both their flagship acts in the mid-Sixties, and the Albert Productions record label, esatblished in the early 1970s, became one of the most successful Australian labels of that decade. Other significant 'indie' production houses of ther period included Leopold Productions (Max Merritt ,The Allusions ), set up Festival's original house producerRobert Iredale , andJune Productions , led by former W&G/Astor staff producerRon Tudor , who went on to foundFable Records in 1969.1970 – 1975: "Third Wave"
After a period of flux in the late 60s, during which almost all of the dominant 60s acts dissolved or faded from view, Australian rock moved into the so-called "The Third Wave" (1970 – 1975), a fertile period in which newer performers and veterans of the 60s Beat Boom coalesced into new formations and developed a more mature, progressive and distinctively Australian rock style. Some of these acts were successful within Australia, but few managed to achieve any lasting local or overseas success, due to the combination of poor management, lack of record company support and lack of radio exposure.
Early "Third Wave"
Until the late 1970s, many Australian performers found it hard to become established and to maintain their profile, because of the difficulty in getting airplay on radio. Until 1975, Australian pop radio was dominated by a clique of commercial broadcasters who virtually had the field to themselves and their influence over government was such that, incredibly, no new radio licences had been issued in any Australian capital city since the prevailing industry structure had been consolidated in the early 1930s. All commercial pop radio was broadcast on the AM band, in mono, and the commercial sector strenuously resisted calls to grant new licences, introduce community broadcasting and open up the FM band (then only used for TV broadcasts in Australia) even though FM rock radio was already well-established in the United States.
Many of the more progressively-oriented artists found themselves locked out of Australian commercial radio, which concentrated on high-rotation 3-minute pop single programming. This was a result of the widespread adoption of the American-inspired "More Music" format, which had been pioneered in Los Angeles with great success by the Drake-Chenault programming consultancy.
There was a great deal of innovative and exciting music produced; although few Australians got to hear more than a fraction of it at the time, this music is undergoing a major resurgence both locally and internationally, since Australia is one of the last untapped resources of 20th-century popular music.
Landmark acts of this period include Spectrum and its successor
Ariel (band) , Daddy Cool,Blackfeather , The Flying Circus,Tully (band) ,Tamam Shud ,Russell Morris ,Jeff St John & Copperwine , Chain,Billy Thorpe & The (new) Aztecs,Company Caine ,Kahvas Jute ,Country Radio ,Max Merritt & The Meteors ,The La De Das ,Madder Lake , former Easybeats lead singerStevie Wright ,Wendy Saddington ,The 69'ers ,The Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band and country-rock pioneersThe Dingoes .Guitarist-songwriter-producer
Lobby Loyde (ex Wild Cherries, Purple Hearts) was another key figure in this period, most notably with his '70s bandColoured Balls , who gained a considerable following, despite media allegations that their music promoted skinhead violence. Lloyde had also played an important part in the re-emergence of Billy Thorpe and the 'new' hard-rock incarnation of the Aztecs, and his solo and band recordings in this period had a significant impact in Australia and internationally;Henry Rollins and Nirvana'sKurt Cobain are among those who have reportedly cited Lobby as an influence.Rock musicals were another important development in Australia at this time. The local production of
Hair (musical) brought future "Queen of Pop"Marcia Hines to Australia in 1970. In 1972 the hugely successful and much-praised Sydney production ofJesus Christ Superstar premiered, and this production alone included Marcia Hines,Jon English , theatre legendReg Livermore , the two main members ofAir Supply ,Stevie Wright andJohn Paul Young . It was directed byJim Sharman , who went on to lasting international success as the director of the both the original stage production and the film version ofThe Rocky Horror Show .Alongside the more obscure acts was a raft of successful pop-oriented groups and solo artists, including Sherbet, Hush, Ray Burgess, the
Ted Mulry Gang (TMG) andJohn Paul Young , who went on to become the first Australian performer to have a major hit in multiple international markets with his perennial "Love Is In The Air" (1978) — a song which was, not coincidentally, written and produced by former Easybeats Harry Vanda and George Young, the masterminds behind many of the biggest Australian hits of the mid-to-late Seventies. The tail-end of the Second Wave gave birth to the record-breaking Skyhooks, who bridged the transition from the Third Wave into the period of the so-calledNew Wave music acts of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Sherbet was undoubtedly the most successful of these.The early 1970s also witnessed the first major
rock festival s in Australia, which were closely modelled on the fabled Woodstock festival of 1969. The festival era was exemplified by the annualSunbury music festival , held outside Melbourne, Victoria each January from 1972 to 1975. Although there were numerous other smaller festivals, most were not successful and failed to have the lasting impact of Sunbury. After the disastrous 1975 festival, which sent the promoters broke, large-scale festivals were considered too risky and were only rarely staged in Australia until the advent of the annualBig Day Out in the 1990s.Two important changes which had a dramatic affect the rock scene were the long-overdue introduction of colour television and FM radio in 1975. This period also saw the decline of the booming local dance and discotheque circuit that had flourished in the 1960s and early Seventies. These rock dances were a continuation of the social dance circuit that had thrived in Australia's cities and suburbs since the 1800s, and they were hugely popular from the late Fifties to the early Seventies, but they gradually faded in the early Seventies as the "Baby Boomer" generation grew into adulthood and changes to licencing laws saw
pubs take on an increasingly important role as venues for live music.From the 1950s to the early 1970s, the main venues for live music were discotheques (usually located in inner city areas), church, municipal and community halls, Police Boys' Clubs and beachside surf clubs. Bigger concerts and international tours were usually staged in the few large-size venues, such as the legendary
Sydney Stadium (originally built as a boxing arena), theSydney Trocadero , and Brisbane and Melbourne Festival Hall. Such venues regularly attracted large numbers of young people because they were supervised, all-ages events — Australia's restrictive liquor licensing laws of the period meant that these venues and dances were almost always alcohol-free.According to rock historian
Glenn A Baker , in 1965 there were up to 100 dances being held every weekend in and around Melbourne alone. The most popular groups frequently played almost every night of the week, commonly commuting around town, performing short sets at three or more different dances every night. It was a very lucrative circuit for musicians and even moderately popular acts could easily earn considerably more than the average weekly wage at that time.The decline of the local dance circuit, combined with the fact that the
baby boom teenagers of the Sixties were now ageing into adulthood, led to the rise of a thriving new city and suburbanpub music circuit in the mid-70s, which in turn spawned a new generation of bands who cut their teeth in this often tough but formative training ground.1974: "Countdown"
"Main article:" Countdown
Teen-oriented pop music still enjoyed strong popularity during the 1970s, although much of it was sourced from overseas, and the proportion of Australian acts in the charts had hit an all-time low by 1973. That trend began to change around 1975, thanks largely to the advent of a new weekly TV pop show, "Countdown", in late 1974. It gained a huge audience and soon exerted a strong influence on radio programmers, because it was broadcast nationwide on Australia's government-owned broadcaster, the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). "Countdown" was the most popular music programs in Australian TV history, and it had a marked effect on radio because of its loyal national audience — and the amount of Australian content it featured.The most important feature of Countdown was that it became a critical new interface between the record industry and radio. By the late 1970s, radio programmers ignored Countdown's hit picks at their peril. Host
Ian "Molly" Meldrum also frequently used the show to castigate local radio for its lack of support for Australian music. Unlike commercial TV or radio, Countdown was not answerable to advertisers or sponsors, and (in theory) it was far less susceptible to influence from record companies. Like no other ABC program before or since, it openly and actively promoted the products of these private companies and even back in the Seventies, there's no doubt that there would have been a major controversy if the ABC had used its resources to promote the products of any other private industry so blatantly. Yet, it was able to do so because the public, the regulators and the policy-makers evidently regarded pop records and music videos as somehow standing outside the realm of everyday commerce.Countdown was crucial to the success of acts like
John Paul Young , Sherbet, Skyhooks, Dragon andSplit Enz , and it dominated Australian popular music well into the 1980s, although some critics felt that in later years it tended to concentrate on pop-oriented major-label acts and that it failed to reflect much of the exciting independent scene of the time.1975: the establishment of Double Jay
"Main article:"
Triple J In the long term, one of the most important changes to the Australian music industry in the 1970s (and beyond) turned out to be the founding of the ABC's first all-rock radio station, Double Jay (2JJ) in Sydney in January 1975. It is indicative of the conservative nature of the Australian media and its regulators that Double Jay was the first new radio licence issued in an Australian capital city in more than 40 years. It was also Australia's first non-commercial 24-hour rock station, and the first to employ women disc jockeys.
Double-Jay's wide-ranging programming policies were influenced by British '60s
pirate radio , the early programming ofBBC Radio One , and the American album-oriented rock (AOR) format. The new station opened up the airwaves to a vast amount of new local music, introduced listeners to important overseas innovations likereggae , dub,progressive rock , punk and New Wave -- music that had been largely ignored by commercial radio. Double Jay also featured an unprecedented level of Australian content, and presented regular live concert broadcasts, comedy, controversial documentaries and innovative radiophonic features.Double-Jay quickly made a significant mark on the ratings in its target age group, much to the dismay of its major commercial competitor, Sydney's
2SM (then Australia's top rating and most profitable pop station) and, in concert with "Countdown", Triple J was a crucial Australian outlet for the emerging punk andNew Wave music styles of the late 1970s. Much of this music was considered too extreme for commercial radio and it is doubtful that much of it would have been heard otherwise, but after 1975 it soon became an established pattern for Double Jay to break new overseas acts likeThe Clash andThe Police , or local acts like Midnight Oil and The Birthday Party, after which they were (usually) considered "safe" for commercial radio.Despite the constant downplaying of its significance by the commercial sector, the importance and influence on Double Jay/Triple-J on the Australian music industry and Australian commercial radio cannot be underestimated.
The late 1970s
The advent Double Jay and "Countdown" fundamentally changed the political economy of Australian popular music, and the pub circuit gave rise to a newer generation of tough, uncompromising, adult-oriented rock bands.
One of the most popular Australian groups to emerge in this period was the classic
Australian pub rock bandCold Chisel , which formed inAdelaide in 1973 and enjoyed tremendous success in Australia in the late 1970s and early 1980s, although they never managed to break into other countries.Other popular acts from this transitional period include
AC/DC , Skyhooks,Richard Clapton ,Ol' 55 ,Jon English ,Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons , The Angels,The Sports , The Radiators,Australian Crawl , Dragon,Rose Tattoo , Ross Wilson'sMondo Rock , acclaimed soul singersMarcia Hines andRenée Geyer and pioneering Australian punk/new wave acts The Saints (Mk I) andRadio Birdman . The bandSebastian Hardie became known as the first Australiansymphonic rock band in the mid-70s, with the release of their debut "Four Moments ".Three "Australian" acts that appeared towards the end of the Second Wave — AC/DC, Little River Band and Split Enz — and lasted into the late 1970s and early 1980s achieved the long sought-after international success that finally took Australasian rock onto the world stage.
The progression of the Australian independent scene from the late seventies uptil the early nineties is chronicled in (Pan Macmillan, 1996) by author and music journalist
Clinton Walker .AC/DC
AC/DC are perhaps the most well-known rock group from Australia. They have sold millions of albums, toured the world several times over, broken countless attendance records, and influenced hard rock music the world over.
From their humble beginnings, Scottish brothers Angus and Malcolm Young forged a hard-hitting, ball-breaking pub guitar sound. When Bon Scott joined the band to lend his unique vocal talent, the band began their 'long way to the top', shooting to the top of the Australian rock scene in 1974 – 75 and their song "It's A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock and Roll)". This song is now widely regarded as "the" Australian rock anthem. The band found a degree of international success, especially with the release of their "Highway to Hell" album. This was to be Bon Scott's last album. During the subsequent tour, Scott was discovered in the backseat of his car, having died of asphyxiation due to alcohol poisoning.
The band found a new singer in English-born Brian Johnson and released their next album, "Back In Black", in the early '80s. The U.S. took notice of the band with some of their finest songs, such as the title track and "You Shook Me All Night Long", and the album became the best selling album by a "band" ever, with
Michael Jackson 's Thriller as number one, selling over 22 million copies in the U.S. and 42 million copies around the worldAC/DC are credited as a seminal influence by scores of leading hard rock and heavy metal music acts, and they are now rated the fifth-biggest selling group in U.S. recording history, with total sales of over 100 million records.
Little River Band
"Main article:"
Little River Band The next important band of this period is the soft-rock-harmony group
Little River Band (LRB). Resurrected from the ashes of an earlier band called Mississippi, LRB centred on a trio of seasoned veterans. Lead singerGlenn Shorrock had fronted Australian 60s pop idolsThe Twilights and singer-guitaristsBeeb Birtles andGraeham Goble had been the core members of Mississippi; prior to that, Birtles had played bass in chart-topping Australian '60s pop group Zoot whose former lead guitaristRick Springfield also became a solo star in the USA.Under the guidance of manager
Glenn Wheatley (former bassist inThe Masters Apprentices , one of the top Australian bands of the Sixties) LRB became the first Australian band to achieve major ongoing chart and sales success in the United States. They achieved huge success in the late 70s and early 80s and their single "Reminiscing" now ranks as one of the most frequently-played singles in American radio history. [http://www.debbiekruger.com/writer/aprap/goble.html]Punk, post-punk and early electronic music
By the late 1970s
punk rock 's influence had been felt throughout the world, and bands like The Saints andRadio Birdman (sometimes considered punk rock acts themselves) gained a loyal following (largely thanks toDouble Jay and to a lesser extent "Countdown"). Following the punk movement several influential bands of this so-calledpost-punk era were The Birthday Party, led byNick Cave .Other developments of the late 1970s were the appearance of early
electronic music ians most notable of which wereSydney -basedSevered Heads andMelbourne 's Essendon Airport who began to experiment with tape-loops and synthesisers, but did not rise to prominence until the 1980s. Although completely underground until the late 1980s, by the late 1990s Severed Heads were widely cited in Australia and in other parts world as being significant influences on the development ofelectronic music genres suchsynth pop andindustrial music . At the pop end of the scale,Mi-Sex scored a major hit with the single 'Computer Games' in 1980, which was one of the first Australian pop recordings to employ sequenced synthesiser backings. In 1980 producer Mark Moffatt pioneered dance technology by becoming the first in the world to use a Roland 808 rhythm composer and MC 4 digital sequencer on record with his studio project the Monitors. Prior to that he had produced "(I'm) Stranded" with the Saints.1980s
While many Australasian bands from the 1980s remained cult acts outside of Australia, some, including
Little River Band ,Men at Work ,AC/DC ,INXS ,Midnight Oil , and laterCrowded House andKylie Minogue , found wide success throughout the decade.Critically-acclaimed acts like The Church,
Hunters & Collectors ,Hoodoo Gurus , the second incarnation of The Saints and a new band formed by Nick Cave andMick Harvey ,Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds , developed strong followings in Europe and other regions. More commercial acts such as singerJohn Farnham were very successful for many years within Australia, but remain largely unknown outside the country.Farnham's commercial comeback was one the biggest success stories in Australian music in that decade, the former "King of Pop" spent years out of favour with the public and the industry, often reduced to working in suburban clubs, but he bounded back onto the charts in 1986 with the album "Whispering Jack", which became the biggest-selling album of that year and remains one of the biggest selling Australian records. Not coincidentally, his manager was
Glenn Wheatley , former manager of Little River Band.Renowned artists such as singer-songwriter Paul Kelly and his band The Coloured Girls (renamed The Messengers for America), ambient-rock-crossover act
Not Drowning, Waving , thedarkwave -world music groupDead Can Dance and Aboriginal-bandYothu Yindi drew inspiration from uniquely Australian concerns, particularly from the land, which garnered them critical appraisal within Australia, and found international listeners.The decade also saw perhaps the most concerted examination of the routine and everyday aspects of suburban and inner-city life since perhaps
The Executives 1960's classic "Summer Hill Road." This approach was explored not only by Paul Kelly and the aforementioned Coloured Girls (in songs like "From St. Kilda To Kings Cross" and "Leaps and Bounds" but also by bands such as TheLittle Heroes (eg "Melbourne is Not New York"),John Kennedy's Love Gone Wrong (eg "King Street") andThe Mexican Spitfires (eg "Sydney Town" and "Town Hall Steps."The 1980s was a boom period in many ways, and it produced scores of great bands and some of the best Australian pop-rock recordings. This includes widely praised, popular and influential acts such as
The Models ,Laughing Clowns ,Sunnyboys ,Hunters & Collectors ,Machinations ,Matt Finish ,Hoodoo Gurus ,Divinyls ,The Dugites ,The Numbers ,The Swingers ,Spy Vs Spy ,Eurogliders ,Mental As Anything ,Boom Crash Opera ,The Go-Betweens ,I'm Talking , Do Ré Mi, Real Life,The Reels ,The Stems ,The Triffids , Icehouse,Redgum ,Goanna , 1927,Noiseworks ,GANGgajang ,The Black Sorrows andThe Zorros . These acts often topped the Australian charts but never quite gained the international success that many critics felt they deserved, although many continued with loyal followings well into the 1990s.One especially noteworthy group in this period was the pioneering Aboriginal group
Warumpi Band from theNorthern Territory , whose landmark single "Jailanguru Pakarnu (Out from Jail)" was the first rock single ever recorded in an Aboriginal language. Once again Triple J were instrumental in bringing this band to public attention, as wereMidnight Oil , who took the group on national tours with them. Their classic 1987 single "My Island Home" was successfully covered byChristine Anu in the 1990s.Detroit rock bands such as theCelibate Rifles ,The Lime Spiders andThe Hitmen would serve as a link between thegarage rock revival of the 1980s and thegrunge scene to follow.1990s — Indie Rock
Throughout the developed world,
indie rock of various kinds became more popular during the 1990s, especiallygrunge rock . As in other countries, independentmusic festival s also saw a resurgence in popularity, most notably theBig Day Out (which began inSydney in 1992) attracted and helped build the careers of many Australian acts as well as showcasing international artists to a local audience. Notable Australian independent acts of the time included theFalling Joys fromCanberra ;Regurgitator ,Powderfinger ,Screamfeeder and Custard fromBrisbane ;The Living End ,Dirty Three ,Magic Dirt andThe Meanies from Melbourne;Jebediah from Perth,RatCat , The Clouds,You Am I ,The Whitlams ,The Crystal Set fromSydney ; andSilverchair , who began as a teenage combo in Newcastle, were discovered by Triple-J and have since become one of the most successful Australian bands of all time. The changes brought about in this period and the aforementioned bands are discussed in the bookThe Sell-In by music journalistCraig Mathieson .Far and away the biggest commercial success of the 1990s was
electropop duoSavage Garden . They shot to fame in 1996, scoring huge hits in Australia, Asia, Europe and America. They became the first Australian act since Men At Work to score two #1 U.S. hits, and their 1999 album "Affirmation" sold over 5 million copies in the United States. alone. A 2004 report in "The Sydney Morning Herald " rated their album "Savage Garden" at #4 and "Affirmation" at #15 in the list of the 25 biggest-selling albums (from any country) over the last ten years in Australia.While overseas hip-hop became quite popular in Australia in the early 1990s, and a number of artists began performing it, virtually none of them were signed to record deals or saw mainstream airplay.
The 1990s also saw a rise in popular Australian music and videos for young children, particularly
The Wiggles andHi-5 .2000s
Australia's predilection for rock never really went away, despite the enthusiasm for dance music in the late 1990s. Several Australian rock bands saw international success in Europe and the US. Notable examples include
The Vines , who rose to prominence in the UK before becoming known in Australia, The Butterfly Effect, and Jet. Jet, influenced by seminal 1960s acts such as the Beatles andthe Rolling Stones , had their single "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" used in an Apple iPod commercial, and consequently have sold 3 million copies in the US alone. Another band which had great success isWolfmother , a hard rock band, very influenced by 70'spsychedelic rock and heavy metal bands, likeLed Zeppelin ,Black Sabbath andDeep Purple . In 2007 Wolfmother were awarded a Grammy for best hard rock performance for their extremely successful single "Woman".Apart from those bands which achieved international success, one of the well known Australian rock bands of the 2000s was
Grinspoon . They first achieved success in the music industry in 1995 after beingUnearthed by Triple J, and have been a mainstay of festivals such as the Big Day Out ever since.Domestically, roots music, seemingly a catch-all term for somewhat more laid-back acoustic music covering blues, country and folk influences, came to some prominence, including John Butler leading
the John Butler Trio , and the plaintive harmonies ofThe Waifs . A number of "blues and roots" festivals have sprung up and are attracting large audiences.As well as these uniquely "Aussie Bands", 2005 in particular sparked many brand new Australian "indie rock" bands such as
End Of Fashion who won ARIA awards for their debut self-titled album and hit song "Oh Yeah" (as well as performing at theHomebake festival and appearing on talk show Rove Live several times). There is alsoKisschasy who appeared in concert onOctober 2 ,2005 with teen favouriteSimple Plan .Even at the commercial end of popular music, more attention was finally being paid towards "real" musicians, especially female singers-songwriters. A wave of female fronted,
PJ Harvey -esque bands emerged in Australia during the early 00's, most notablyLittle Birdy andLove Outside Andromeda . And with the phenomenial success ofMissy Higgins , real artists such asSarah Blasko and others have found themselves a strong following.Hardcore punk
Australian hardcore punk is an active rock music subgenre with a dedicated following. Many bands never tour outside their home state but enjoy a relatively large local fanbase. Recorded material of their work may be hard to acquire as live shows are the mainstay of the scene.
The Do-It-Yourself (DIY) ethic is strong with local distributors and small record labels active in most capital cities. Unlike the United States relatively few bands are straight edge or influenced by particular political views or religious convictions.
The strong sense of DIY ethics embarrassed by independent street press and community radio stations mostly in Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth forms a breeding ground for creative artist who wish to explore the audio spectrum as seen in
Sticky Carpet rockumentary of Melbourne music scene.In recent years, Australian hardcore bands have been growing in fanbase and success, the most notable being Byron Bay's
Parkway Drive signing to American punk/hardcore record labelEpitaph Records .References
Further reading
* McFarlane, Ian. (1999). "The Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop". St. Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 1864487682.
External links
* [http://www.milesago.com/MainFrame.htm Australasian popular music of the 1960s and 1970s]
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