My fellow Australians (and anyone that wants to contribute). What are some great Australian artists/albums that you know of? Feel free to suggest the classics, of course - Nick Cave, AC/DC, Midnight Oil etc. - but hopefully you'll know of some more obscure artists I'm not familiar with.
Follow up question - is there an Australian sound? Britain and America seem to have fairly distinct sounds from one another. How do we fit into that? Do we have our own sound that makes someone listening go, "That band is Australian," outside of singing with a clear accent etc? Thoughts?
My fellow Australians (and anyone that wants to contribute). What are some great Australian artists/albums that you know of? Feel free to suggest the classics, of course - Nick Cave, AC/DC, Midnight Oil etc. - but hopefully you'll know of some more obscure artists I'm not familiar with.
Follow up question - is there an Australian sound? Britain and America seem to have fairly distinct sounds from one another. How do we fit into that? Do we have our own sound that makes someone listening go, "That band is Australian," outside of singing with a clear accent etc? Thoughts?
Not really. At least not one I've really noticed. New Zealand does though. Does that count or am I just being a typical American? lol.
My fellow Australians (and anyone that wants to contribute). What are some great Australian artists/albums that you know of? Feel free to suggest the classics, of course - Nick Cave, AC/DC, Midnight Oil etc. - but hopefully you'll know of some more obscure artists I'm not familiar with.
Follow up question - is there an Australian sound? Britain and America seem to have fairly distinct sounds from one another. How do we fit into that? Do we have our own sound that makes someone listening go, "That band is Australian," outside of singing with a clear accent etc? Thoughts?
Not really. At least not one I've really noticed. New Zealand does though. Does that count or am I just being a typical American? lol.
I'm tempted to say it does. That would mean I could claim Lorde as a national treasure. But, technically, probably not. It'd kind of like claiming Ireland counts as British - although, that is a lot more politically loaded. Out of curiosity, what is the NZ sound in your opinion? I'd never really noticed they had one.
My fellow Australians (and anyone that wants to contribute). What are some great Australian artists/albums that you know of? Feel free to suggest the classics, of course - Nick Cave, AC/DC, Midnight Oil etc. - but hopefully you'll know of some more obscure artists I'm not familiar with.
Follow up question - is there an Australian sound? Britain and America seem to have fairly distinct sounds from one another. How do we fit into that? Do we have our own sound that makes someone listening go, "That band is Australian," outside of singing with a clear accent etc? Thoughts?
Not really. At least not one I've really noticed. New Zealand does though. Does that count or am I just being a typical American? lol.
I'm tempted to say it does. That would mean I could claim Lorde as a national treasure. But, technically, probably not. It'd kind of like claiming Ireland counts as British - although, that is a lot more politically loaded. Out of curiosity, what is the NZ sound in your opinion? I'd never really noticed they had one.
Divinyls were my favorite Australian band. Most Americans were probably only familiar with their crummy hit I Touch Myself, but before that they were pretty good. Their first 3 albums anyway, which were:
Desperate
What a Life
Temperamental. ( featuring their remake of the classic 60s garage band hit " Hey Little Girl", which they retitled "Hey Little Boy")
I also like these bands from Australia:
AC/DC
Icehouse
The Saints
Mental as Anything
Hunters & Collectors
I also kind of liked that teenaged band Silverchair during the Golden Age of grunge
My favorite New Zealand band was Split Enz.
Last edited by bobbyb5 on 09/29/2017 01:59; edited 1 time in total
I think Australian music's fairly broadbased and I don't really think there's an "Australian" sound but I'd say the same about UK and US as well though Jazz, Blues and early rock and roll of course are singularly American. If I had to generalise about an Aussie sound it'd be "pub rock" which forged the likes of Cold Chisel, ACDC, Midnight Oil, The Saints and even the Birthday Party.
There is a unique NZ sound for those with long memories who remember the "The Dunedin Sound". Spawned numerous bands with a distinct indi/alt often acoustic bent such as The Bats, The Chills and The Clean
Dude - to be frank (and I mean this as a slam on Americans, not you), most Americans don't know the difference between Austria and Australia.
I lived in Austria for a year and half my mail from the States went to Australia first, and then the Aussies knew what was up and they sent it to Austria.
As far as a sound goes... idk.
When I was younger I thought Led Zeppelin was an American band. How the F does a British band play the blues (yes that is close minded).
Other than that, yes I'd agree there's a British sound and American sound. I mean there's crossover too. And I think Australia has more crossover than uniquely Australia (based on what I've heard- don't claim to be an expert or anything on the subject).
Having said that, I think Australians and Americans have more in common - geographically and culturally - whatever that means to our music, dunno.
Same goes for Canada... It'd be easy for me to mistake a Canadian artist for an American and an American Artist for Canadian.
Also for kicks, here's a list of this site's top 20 Australian bands:
IMO: (the rest idk... maybe that's the Australian sound... but likely I'm less familiar or it's a toss up)
More likely to be British
Tame Impala
INXS
The Church
More likely to be American
AC/DC
Wolfmother
Bee Gees (sad but true)
More likely to be Canadian
Dead Can Dance
Rank Artist Albums Top Ranked Album Score
Australia 1 AC/DC 25 Back In Black (95th) 41,065
Australia 2 Tame Impala 5 Lonerism (99th) 35,872
Australia 3 Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds 23 The Boatman's Call (385th) 33,955
Australia 4 The Avalanches 3 Since I Left You (209th) 12,419
Australia 5 Midnight Oil 14 Diesel And Dust (909th) 6,095
Australia 6 Crowded House 10 Woodface (996th) 5,622
Australia 7 INXS 14 Kick (768th) 5,174
Australia 8 Dead Can Dance 12 Within The Realm Of A Dying Sun (944th) 4,996
Australia 9 The Go-Betweens 16 16 Lovers Lane (1,043rd) 3,761
Australia 10 Courtney Barnett 5 Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit (743rd)
Australia 11 Wolfmother 4 Wolfmother (800th) 3,255
Australia 12 The Church 27 Starfish (1,377th) 2,967
Australia 13 Dirty Three 13 Ocean Songs (1,066th) 2,811
Australia 14 Kylie Minogue 14 Fever (1,911th) 2,569
Australia 15 Bee Gees 32 Odessa (2,823rd) 2,544
Australia 16 Powderfinger 11 Odyssey Number Five (2,306th) 2,534
Australia 17 King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard 11 Nonagon Infinity (2,484th) 2,160
Australia 18 Silverchair 6 Diorama (2,350th) 2,026
Australia 19 Cut Copy 5 In Ghost Colours (1,470th) 1,897
Australia 20 You Am I 11 Hourly, Daily (2,144th) 1,897
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lol.
