What the list says about Australia

It is unfortunate that I forget the site from which this 2011 list of the best Australian albums of all time was taken. However, I still feel I should have some sort of look at it as I had planned to do a long time ago.

1. Odyssey Number Five – Powderfinger

2. Frogstomp – silverchair

3. Back in Black – AC/DC

4. The Living End – The Living End

5. Kick – INXS

6. Internationalist – Powderfinger

7. Apocalypso – Presets

8. Wolfmother – Wolfmother

9. Since I Left You – The Avalanches

10. UNIT – Regurgitator

11. Like Drawing Blood – Gotye

12. Guide To Better Living – Grinspoon

13. Crowded House – Crowded House

14. Vulture Street – Powderfinger

15. Slightly Odway – Jebediah

16. The Hard Road – Hilltop Hoods

17. Eternal Nightcap – The Whitlams

18. Woodface – Crowded House

19. Innerspeaker – Tame Impala

20. Conditions – The Temper Trap

21. 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1– Midnight Oil

22. Diorama – silverchair

23. The Calling – Hilltop Hoods

24. Sunrise Over Sea – The John Butler Trio

25. Get Born – Jet

26. Hourly, Daily – You Am I
27. Neon Ballroom – silverchair

28. The Cat Empire – The Cat Empire

29. The Sound of White – Missy Higgins

30. Themata – Karnivool

31. Down the Way – Angus & Julia Stone

32. Universes – Birds of Tokyo
33. Diesel and Dust – Midnight Oil

34. Memories & Dust – Josh Pyke

35. Hi Fi Way – You Am I

36. In Ghost Colours – Cut Copy

37. Highly Evolved – The Vines
38. A Book Like This – Angus & Julia Stone

39. Birds of Tokyo – Birds of Tokyo

40. Echolalia – Something for Kate

41. Double Allergic – Powderfinger
42. East – Cold Chisel

43. Freak Show – silverchair

44. Tu-Plang – Regurgitator

45. Sound Awake – Karnivool

46. Walking on a Dream – Empire of the Sun

47. Black Fingernails, Red Wine – Eskimo Joe
48. Ivy and the Big Apples – Spiderbait

49. Whispering Jack – John Farnham

50. The New Normal – Cog

51. I Believe You Liar – Washington
52. Murder Ballads – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

53. Three – The John Butler Trio
54. Tea & Sympathy – Bernard Fanning

55. Blue Sky Mining – Midnight Oil

56. Bliss Release – Cloud Control
57. The Honeymoon Is Over – The Cruel Sea

58. New Detention – Grinspoon

59. As Day Follows Night – Sarah Blasko

60. We Are Born – Sia

61. Hold Your Colour – Pendulum
62. Cruel Guards – The Panics

63. Grand National – The John Butler Trio

64. Polyserena – george

65. Cold Chisel – Cold Chisel

66. Running on Air – Bliss N Eso

67. Flying Colours – Bliss N Eso

68. The Experiment – Art vs. Science

69. Gossip – Paul Kelly and The Coloured Girls

70. Young Modern – silverchair

71. Beams – The Presets

72. Beautiful Sharks – Something For Kate

73. Highway To Hell – AC/DC

74. The Overture and The Underscore – Sarah Blasko

75. Living in the 70s – Skyhooks

76. Human Frailty – Hunters & Collectors

77. Immersion – Pendulum

78. Lovers – The Sleepy Jackson

79. Gravity Won’t Get You High – The Grates

80. (I’m) Stranded – The Saints

81. Feeler – Pete Murray

82. Up All Night – The Waifs

83. Wonder – Lisa Mitchell

84. 16 Lovers Lane – The Go-Betweens

85. State of the Art – Hilltop Hoods

86. This Is the Warning – Dead Letter Circus

87. A Song Is a City – Eskimo Joe

88. Imago – The Butterfly Effect

89. Pnau – Pnau

90. The Long Now – Children Collide

91. Gilgamesh – Gypsy & The Cat

92. A Man’s Not a Camel – Frenzal Rhomb

93. Moo, You Bloody Choir – Augie March

94. Everything Is True – Paul Dempsey

95. Stoneage Romeos – Hoodoo Gurus

96. Paging Mr. Strike – Machine Gun Fellatio

97. Begins Here – The Butterfly Effect
98. The Boatman’s Call – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

99. Thrills, Kills & Sunday Pills – Grinspoon

100. Two Shoes – The Cat Empire

On the whole, it is very hard to say much abut this list for the very simple reason that I know so little about most of the albums in that list. Powderfinger, who top the list, are a band I have always disliked since first hearing them on Triple M as a young Melbourne University student, and Silverchair are a band I have hated ever since hearing many times awful songs like “Pure Massacre” (which I heard as “New Mexico”) and “Israel’s Son” - though they have actually disowned Frogstomp today.

When one looks at Australia’s comfortable, conservative culture, it is hard to with hindsight see ultra-macho AC/DC as being part of it. They really were a part of the European rock scene that lived in Australia, though some aspects of their music - its very basic rock and roll character - are Australian. INXS have not held up that well with age since Hutchence’ suicide in 1997, and the Presets are totally retro even in the middle 2000s. Those artists lower down on the list are mostly “alternative” rockers whom I have come to realise really are not properly an “alternative” to the mainstream of the post-grunge era. Critics outside of Australia have never remotely been attracted to these groups even though they are generally not without experience of Australian music.

When one looks through the rest of that list, one sees more than anything that Australia’s extremely high “connectedness” or natural unity leads to a stifling conformity even with the incentives of perhaps the freest market in the world. Newspapers have long notices Australia’s lack of distinctive music - I recall such being noted by The Age in 1996 - but the cause is never considered.