The 100 Best Australian albums
1. Midnight Oil – Diesel and Dust
2. AC/DC – Back in Black
3. Crowded House – Woodface
4. Cold Chisel – Circus Animals
5. The Triffids – Born Sandy Devotional
6. Easybeats – The Best Of
7. Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls – Gossip
8. You Am I – Hi Fi Way
9. Skyhooks – Living in the 70’s
10. Avalanches – Since I Left You
11. INXS – Kick
12. Go-Betweens – 16 Lovers Lane
13. Radio Birdman – Radios Appear
14. Daddy Cool – Daddy Who? Daddy Cool!
15. Richard Clapton – Goodbye Tiger
16. Bee Gees – Best of
17. The Birthday Party – Junkyard
18. Hunters & Collectors – Human Frailty
19. Sarah Blasko – As Day Follows Night
20. The Saints – I’m Stranded
21. Drones – Gala Mill
22. Split Enz – True Colours
23. Midnight Oil – 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1
24. Slim Dusty – The Very Best of
25. Silverchair – Neon Ballroom
26. Nick Cave Bad Seeds – The Boatman’s Call
27. Regurgitator – Unit
28. Hoodoo Gurus – Stoneage Romeos
29. Empire of the Sun – Walking on a Dream
30. Gurrumul – Gurrumul
31. Kasey Chambers – Barricades & Brickwalls
32. Johnny O’Keefe – The Wild One
33. The Church – Starfish
34. The Reels – Quasimodo’s Dream
35. Master’s Apprentices – Master’s Apprentices
36. Savage Garden – Savage Garden
37. Sunnyboys – Sunnyboys
38. Kev Carmody & Various Artists – Cannot Buy My Soul
39. Something For Kate – Echolalia
40. Stephen Cummings – Lovetown
41. The Saints – Prehistoric Sounds
42. Australian Crawl – The Boys Light Up
43. Powderfinger – Odyssey No. 5
44. Mental as Anything – Cats & Dogs
45. Eddy Current Suppression Ring – Rush To Relax
46. Models – Pleasure of Your Company
47. Augie March – Moo, You Bloody Choir
48. The Missing Links – The Missing Links
49. Ed Kuepper – Honey Steel’s Gold
50. AC/DC – Highway to Hell
51. The Sports – Don’t Throw Stones
52. The Seekers – Greatest Hits
53. Cold Chisel – East
54. Underground Lovers – Leaves Me Blind
55. You Am I – Hourly, Daily
56. INXS – The Swing
57. The Living End – The Living End
58. Jimmy Barnes – For the Working Class Man
59. Russell Morris – Wings of an Eagle
60. Hoodoo Gurus – Mars Needs Guitars
61. The Presets – Apocalypso
62. The Dingoes – The Dingoes
63. The Cruel Sea – The Honeymoon is Over
64. The Angels – Face to Face
65. The Hummingbirds – loveBUZZ
66. Paul Kelly – Foggy Highway
67. Chain – Towards the Blues
68. Dragon – O Zambesi
69. Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs – Live at Sunbury
70. The Scientists – Blood Red River
71. Crowded House – Temple of Low Men
72. Died Pretty – Doughboy Hollow
73. Axiom – Fool’s Gold
74. Bob Evans – Suburban Songbook
75. Dirty 3 – Ocean Songs
76. Renee Geyer – Ready to Deal
77. The Church – The Blurred Crusade
78. The Vines – Highly Evolved
79. John Farnham – Whispering Jack
80. The Loved Ones – Magic Box
81. Sleepy Jackson – Lovers
82. Bliss N Eso – Flying Colours
83. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Tender Prey
84. Tex, Don + Charlie – Sad But True
85. Flowers – Icehouse
86. Missy Higgins – The Sound of White
87. Go-Betweens – Before Hollywood
88. Normie Rowe – Ain’t Necessarily So
89. Jet – Get Born
90. Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band – Smoke Dreams
91. Ben Lee – Awake is the New Sleep
92. Rose Tattoo – Rose Tattoo
93. I’m Talking – Bear Witness
94. X – X-Aspirations
95. Beaches – Beaches
96. Baby Animals – Baby Animals
97. Bernard Fanning – Tea & Sympathy
98. Kylie Minogue – Fever
99. Men at Work – Business As Usual
100. Morning of the Earth – Soundtrack
In broad terms, yeah, OK. Most of the cases where this lot have ranked a different album from a particular Australian artist (eg AC/DC or You Am I) higher than I would have I can accept as subjective difference, and have usually discussed in the previous post. And it's rock-and-pop biased because, bluntly, Australian music is, or at least has been across the timescope of this study. Country, dance and hip-hop aren't prevalent, because they haven't been prevalent, on balance, across the last 40-50 years this addresses. Don't really have a problem with that. In specifics, however, this list has serious fucking issues. Even the most mentally redundant arsehat knows you don't put best-ofs in a greatest albums list, because they're as much 'albums' as someone's fucking iTunes playlist is. Our stance on disqualifying live albums etc can be argued one way or another - there's a couple of live albums in here - but compilations are never, ever permissable. Absolute fucking muppets. And there's also some pretty spurious efforts in here from acts which have been out for all of 15 minutes and are clearly Critics Darlings Of The Minute - Eddy Current Suppression Ring? The 45th greatest Australian album of all time? Really?
Actually, the more I look at this, the more an exercise in blanket-based muppeteering this becomes. Neon Ballroom better than Frogstomp? Bob Evans better than anything Jebediah did? Savage Garden being on the list in the first fucking place?
It's just as well music is subjective. Because objectively, this list is clearly the work of a shower of hapless, concept-averse arseclowns.
The Doctor is OUT.
10 comments:
Beeps and Blipsand MCs aside, i'd have to agree with you. Wacking the avalances in there shows they hung out with a few JJJ presenters when that came out, i'd argue for sonic animation being a much better band, live and in the studio than them.
Again if you are going to include live albums, then not putting in the Hunters live album and putting in a studio album is a waste of time.
And Bliss and Eso over the Hood's The Calling? Please.
Bang on. If they're considering live albums for some (eg Billy Thorpe) they have to consider them for all. If they're including best ofs (eg for the Seekers or the Easybeats) they have to include best-ofs for every band in the list (eg the Oils' 40,000 Watt RSL.) You can't pick and choose. And if those bands didn't ever manage to record one great album which summed up their sound, stiff shit. It's a best album list, not a best band list.
And i put some albums in my list that while i don't love every song, i still love the album, cause it is a moment in time that a best of can't do. A live album can though and even a soundtrack in some cases.
Like I said - I see the argument for why a live album might be a fair inclusion - particularly if it's of a single gig (ie capturing a band at that moment of their development as a live act) - but that said if I'd put live albums into my top 50 they'd have dominated the pointy end to the detriment of studio ones. If you include compilation-style soundtracks though, why not include Triple J Hottest 100s and the like? They're also of time and place. Thin edge of the wedge.
No Air Supply? C'mon, man!
Missy Higgins? SNORT...the list to me looks like SonyBMG's stable and Universal's back catalogue.
Yeah I wonder about Missy Higgins. I went back to Vika and Linda's first album the other day and it is easily as good as anything Missy has done, maybe better. So what makes her worthy? Timing? Lipstick lesbianism?
YDog - no Air Supply. We shall suffocate I'm afraid.
Beeso - reckon it's much the same situation as to why you were arguing the Avalanches were outrating Sonicanimation, Higgins had the combination of timing, buzz and HEAVY support from Triple J (she was originally an Unearthed winner wasn't she?) The lipstick lesbian thing didn't come out (ahem) straight away, apart from question marks over the lyrics of Scar. But she definitely hit a chord with twenty something women of around our vintage, that was for certain. Timing and buzz.
Bwahahahahahaha. As I was reading your intro to this I thought to myself, "I wonder if Cresswell or Johnny O'D were involved in this?"
And then, my eyes dropped down to the graphic and there they were.
Bingo!
They used to edit Rolling Stone when I wrote for it.
They've been doing this 100 album thing for 20 years.
Cheers JB - that kinda figures, and speaks to some of the stuff Beeso brought up on Twunter about there being next to no dance, country, hiphop etc on the list, and they picks they've made there are questionable. Kinda interesting to see how they've rewritten history here a bit in terms of pulling forward bands who were irrelevant or ignored in their day but have been bestowed with a bunch of significance after the fact fairy-godmother-style.
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