Australian Popular Music

Completely revised and updated Second Edition of the most comprehensive guide to the bands and artists who moulded the shape of Australian popular music from 1956 to 2016.

David Nichols tells the story of Australian rock and pop music from 1960 to 1985 – formative years in which the nation cast off its colonial cultural shackles and took on the world. Generously illustrated and scrupulously researched, Dig combines scholarly accuracy with populist flair. Nichols is an unfailingly witty and engaging guide, surveying the fertile and varied landscape of Australian popular music in seven broad historical chapters, interspersed with shorter chapters on some of the more significant figures of each period. The result is a compelling portrait of a music scene that evolves in dynamic interaction with those in the United States and the UK, yet has always retained a strong sense of its own identity and continues to deliver new stars – and cult heroes – to a worldwide audience. Dig is a unique achievement. The few general histories to date have been highlight reels, heavy on illustration and short on detail. And while there have been many excellent books on individual artists, scenes and periods, and a couple of first-rate encylopedias, there’s never been a book that told the whole story of the irresistible growth and sweep of a national music culture. Until now . . .

This volume explores aspects of popular music and culture from the twentieth century to the present day. It brings together contributions challenging or reassessing assumptions about how individual, subjective experience comes to terms with modernity. While the emphasis is on Australian case studies, the essays here raise larger questions, ranging from our disempowerment as consumers demanding instant gratification to our ambiguous status as observers of and participants in historical change. They examine the complex relationship between sound and visual media in the formation of various communities, and how this relates to daily lived experience.

Australian music has a proud, colourful and successful history. In 2008, Australian rock and roll turned 50. This book names the best Australian albums of the last 50 years. It places each album in order (from 1 u 100) and discusses why each album deserves its place. It tells the story behind the making of the album, where the album fits in the artist's career and the album's impact on the local and world stage etc. The entries will feature new interviews with the artists and the producers/managers involved in the recording and the release of the album. It wouldn't be a good list if it didn't polarise people and we hope that this list will. We also hope that it will get people sitting around comparing their favourites and discovering or re-discovering these great albums and others. With 70 years of loving and writing about Australian music between us, we shamelessly believe we've earned the right to write this book. And we think we've got it right. Let the debate begin.o u John O'Donnell, April 2010 Finally, here is a much-needed list of argument-starting top 100 seminal/ influential/essential Australian albums of all time. Let the fight begin!

This anthology emanated from a conference in St. John’s, Newfoundland, that brought together popular music scholars, folklorists and ethnomusicologists from Canada and Australia. Implicit in that conference and in this anthology is the comparability of the two countries. Their ‘post-colonial’ status (if that is indeed an appropriate modifier in either case) has some points of similarity. On the other hand, their ‘distance’ – from hegemonic centres, from colonial histories – is arguably more a matter of contrast than similarity. Canada and Australia are similar in various regards. Post-colonial in the sense that they are both former British colonies, they now each have more than a century of stature as nation states. By the beginning of the 21st century, they are each modest in size but rich in ethnocultural diversity. Nonetheless, each country has some skeletons in the closet where openness to difference, to indigenous and new immigrant groups are concerned. Both countries are similarly both experiencing rapid shifts in cultural makeup with the biggest population increases in Australia coming from China, India, and South Africa, and the biggest in Canada from Afro-Caribbean, South Asian countries, and China. The chapters in this anthology constitute an important comparative initiative. Perhaps the most obvious point of comparison is that both countries create commercial music in the shadow of the hegemonic US and British industries. As the authors demonstrate, both proximity (specifically Canada’s nearness to the US) and distance have advantages and disadvantages. As the third and fourth largest Anglophone music markets for popular music, they face similar issues relating to music management, performance markets, and production. A second relationship, as chapters in this anthology attest, is the significant movement between the two countries in a matrix of exchange and influence among musicians that has rarely been studied hitherto. Third, both countries invite comparison with regard to the popular music production of diverse social groups within their national populations. In particular, the tremendous growth of indigenous popular music has resulted in opportunities as well as challenges. Additionally, however, the strategies that different waves of immigrants have adopted to devise or localize popular music that was both competitive and meaningful to their own people as well as to a larger demographic bear comparison. The historical similarities and differences as well as the global positionality of each country in the early 21st century, then, invites comparison relating to musical practices, social organization, lyrics as they articulate social issues, career strategies, industry structures and listeners.

This is your backstage pass to the hidden side of the music industry - the tantrums, the fights, the tensions, the indulgence, the sex, the alcohol, the drugs. The roadies see it all, and now they are sharing their secrets. Roadies are the unsung heroes of the Australian music industry. They unload the PAs and equipment, they set it all up, they make sure everything is running smoothly before, during and after the gigs. Then they pack everything up in the middle of the night, put it in the back of the truck and hit the road to another town - to do it all over again. They know everything about the pre- and post-show excesses. They bear witness to overdoses, the groupies, the obsessive fans. They are part of - and often organise - all the craziness that goes on behind the scenes of the concerts and pub gigs you go to. From The Rolling Stones to AC/DC, Bob Marley to Courtney Love, Sherbet to The Ted Mulry Gang, INXS to Blondie - these guys have seen it all. And now they're stepping onto the stage and talking. The Roadies' Creed: If it's wet, drink it. If it's dry, smoke it. If it moves, **** it. If it doesn't move, throw it in the back of the truck. 'Fabulous . . . a bold portrait' SYDNEY MORNING HERALD on Stuart Coupe's GUDINSKI

"Essays in Australian popular music"--Provided by publisher.

Made in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand: Studies in Popular Music serves as a comprehensive and thorough introduction to the history, sociology, and musicology of twentieth-century popular music of Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. The volume consists of chapters by leading scholars of Australian and Aotearoan/New Zealand music, and covers the major figures, styles, and social contexts of pop music in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. Each chapter provides adequate context so readers understand why the figure or genre under discussion is of lasting significance to Australian or Aotearoan/New Zealand popular music. The book first presents a general description of the history and background of popular music in these countries, followed by chapters that are organized into thematic sections: Place-Making and Music-Making; Rethinking the Musical Event; Musical Transformations: Decline and Renewal; and Global Sounds, Local Identity.

PLASTERED leads us on a chronological journey through popular music poster art--the jazz, rock and roll, pop and punk scenes in Australia. More than five hundred posters from the past five decades are reproduced, most from the collection of avid archivist Nick Vukovic, and featuring the work of renowned poster artists such as Ian McCausland and Reg Mombassa. Roger Butler from the National Gallery of Australia tells us where poster art sits in the world of fine art and Murray Walding evokes the stories of the artists, promoters and performers that surround these posters.

Can rock n' roll and politics mix? Rock Dogs looks at the impact of government music policies on the Australian music scene, youth culture, and national identity. This insightful and timely book is a candid, observant study of the legacy of the Australian Labor Party's cultural policies in the 1980s and early 1990s, and the larger debate over the creation and preservation of a national culture.