Music

The country in sound. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander music first, including the didgeridoo, which comes from Arnhem Land in the north and is under a thousand years old rather than ancient and nationwide. Then the pub rock circuit and the venues that sustained it, country music and the Tamworth festival, the instruments, the broadcasters, and the art music written here.

Part of Australia

198 moments in this segment.

  1. - Lycett painting of a corroboree. A corroboree at Newcastle as painted by Joseph Lycett around 1818. Lycett was a convict artist and the image is a colonist's record of Aboriginal people made by someone with no standing to interpret what he was watching.
  2. - Colonial depiction of a Murray River corroboree. A corroboree on the Murray River in a colonial depiction from 1865. Images of this kind were made by and for Europeans, and the ceremonies themselves are not the archive's to interpret.
  3. - The Carandini family. 1875, among the first opera performing families in Australia. Marie Carandini toured colonial theatres for decades before Melba's generation.
  4. - Clare brass band. The Clare brass band in South Australia in the 1880s, with members of one family. Brass banding was the mass participatory music of Australian country towns before radio.
  5. - Nellie Melba in 1888. Nellie Melba photographed by Nadar in Paris in 1888, the year she made her operatic debut in Brussels. Born Helen Porter Mitchell at Richmond in Melbourne, she took her stage name from her city.
  6. - Melba as Ophelie. 's Hamlet around 1890. She sang at Covent Garden for decades and became the most internationally famous Australian of her era.
  7. - Choir in the Adelaide Exhibition Building. A choir in the Exhibition Building at Adelaide in 1893. Choral singing was the largest organised musical activity in colonial Australia.
  8. - Apollo Orchestra, Charters Towers. The Apollo Orchestra at Charters Towers in 1895. The north Queensland gold town supported orchestras, choirs and a stock exchange at its peak.
  9. - Heinicke's Grand Orchestra. 1896. Commercial orchestras played for dancing, theatre and silent film before recorded sound.
  10. - Geelong brass band. The Geelong brass band in 1899. Bands competed at contests, played at civic events and were often funded by mines, churches or friendly societies.
  11. - Church choir, Charters Towers. A church choir at Charters Towers in 1900. Congregational singing trained most Australians who could read music.
  12. - Family music on a station verandah. A family making music on the verandah at Spring Creek Station around 1900. Domestic music making was the ordinary form before recording.
  13. - Banjo outside a tent. A group outside a tent with a banjo around 1900. Portable instruments travelled with shearers, diggers and drovers.
  14. - Programme for a Melba Australian tour. A programme cover for a Melba Australian concert tour. Her tours were national events and she used them to raise funds during the First World War.
  15. - Friendly societies band, Barcaldine. The United Friendly Societies brass band at Barcaldine in Queensland in 1902. Friendly societies and unions maintained bands as part of their social provision.
  16. - Melba with her father at Lilydale. Melba with her father David Mitchell at Lilydale in Victoria in 1903. Mitchell was a Melbourne building contractor who worked on the Exhibition Building.
  17. - Ballarat City brass band. The Ballarat City brass band in 1904. Ballarat's South Street competitions became the major national contest for bands and choirs.
  18. - Queenstown brass band. The Queenstown brass band in western Tasmania in 1905, in a copper mining town cut off by mountains from the rest of the state.
  19. - Choir at the Ipswich eisteddfod. A Bundaberg choir competing at the Ipswich eisteddfod in 1905. The Welsh derived eisteddfod became a standard fixture of Australian country music life.
  20. - Bush band at Mount Surprise. A bush band at Mount Surprise in north Queensland around 1905. The bush band repertoire of dance tunes and ballads was revived commercially in the 1970s.
  21. - Piano showroom, Rundle Street. A piano showroom in Rundle Street at Adelaide around 1905. The piano was the standard middle class Australian instrument and the trade that supplied them was substantial.
  22. - Brass band in Toowoomba. A brass band in Ruthven Street at Toowoomba around 1907. Street playing was how bands were heard by people who never bought a ticket.
  23. - Boulder City brass band. The Boulder City brass band on the Western Australian goldfields in 1910. Mining towns supported bands out of company and union funds.
  24. - St Augustine's orphanage band. The brass band of St Augustine's orphanage at Geelong in 1911. Institutions taught band music as training and as discipline.
  25. - Lyric Orchestra, Mount Morgan. The Lyric Orchestra at Mount Morgan in Queensland in 1912. Mining towns built musical institutions as quickly as they built hotels.
  26. - Clermont Orchestra. Members of the Clermont Orchestra in 1913. Amateur orchestras filled the gap before broadcasting brought professional players to country audiences.
  27. - Melba with John Lemmone. Melba with the flautist John Lemmone, who managed several of her Australian tours. Lemmone was born at Ballarat to Greek parents.
  28. - Family ensemble at Mount Morgan. The Foster family playing at Mount Morgan around 1914. Family ensembles were common where there was no other entertainment.
  29. - Clara Serena. The contralto Clara Serena, born in South Australia. Australian singers of her generation had to work in Britain to build a career.
  30. - George Clutsam. The composer and pianist George Clutsam, born in Sydney in 1866. He worked mainly in London, writing for the musical stage.
  31. - Sandgate Amateur Opera Company. The Sandgate Amateur Opera Company near Brisbane in 1920. Amateur operatic societies staged Gilbert and Sullivan across suburban Australia for most of a century.
  32. - Nellie Melba in 1921. Melba photographed in 1921. She helped found what became the Melba Memorial Conservatorium in Melbourne and died in Sydney in 1931.
  33. - Anzac Day procession behind a band. An Anzac Day procession behind a brass band at Caboolture in 1921. Commemoration and band music were bound together from the first Anzac Days.
  34. - Sydney Conservatorium of Music. The Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 1930. The building began as the government stables for Government House and was converted for teaching in 1915.
  35. - Programme for a 1931 touring attraction. A programme cover for a 1931 touring musical attraction. Live touring collapsed during the Depression and was reshaped by radio.
  36. - Winifred Burston. The pianist Winifred Burston around 1934. She taught at the Sydney Conservatorium and her students included several who went on to international careers.
  37. - Enmore Theatre promotion, 1938. A promotional lorry for the Enmore Theatre in Sydney in December 1938. The Enmore opened in 1908 and is still a working music venue.
  38. - Music teaching in Sydney, 1946. A music teacher with a student in Sydney in 1946. Private teaching and the examination system carried classical training in Australia far beyond the conservatoriums.
  39. - Bernard Heinze. 1954. He led the ABC's orchestral concerts and shaped Australian orchestral programming for decades.
  40. - Regional radio station letterhead. Letterhead from the Port Augusta commercial radio station 5AU in the early 1970s. Regional commercial radio carried country music and local news across South Australia.
  41. - Tamworth country music figures, 1978. Country performers with Tamworth figures in 1978. The Tamworth Country Music Festival has run each January since 1973 and is the largest gathering of the genre in Australia.
  42. - Yothu Yindi at the Sydney opening ceremony. Yothu Yindi performing at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000. The band from north east Arnhem Land had put Yolngu Matha language onto national radio with Treaty in 1991.
  43. - Yothu Yindi on the ceremony stage. 2000. The band mixed yidaki and bilma with electric guitars and drum machines and its line up joined Yolngu and non Aboriginal musicians.
  44. - Billy Thorpe with Yothu Yindi. Billy Thorpe performing alongside Yothu Yindi at the 2000 opening ceremony. Thorpe had been a fixture of the Australian pub and festival circuit since the 1960s.
  45. - Christine Anu at the Sydney Games. Christine Anu performing at the Sydney Olympic ceremonies in 2000. A Torres Strait Islander singer from Cairns, she sang My Island Home at the closing ceremony.
  46. - Christine Anu in the ceremony staging. Christine Anu with a stage creature during the 2000 ceremonies. Her 1995 album Stylin' Up brought Torres Strait Islander language and rhythm into Australian pop.
  47. - Sheet music in a museum collection. Sheet music held in a museum collection. Printed music was how songs travelled before recording, and Australian publishers issued local songs alongside imported hits.
  48. - Big Day Out crowd. A crowd at the Big Day Out. The touring festival ran from 1992 and for two decades was the main national circuit for large rock bills before it folded.
  49. - Community radio stage at the Big Day Out. A stage and crowd at the Big Day Out. Community radio stations programmed their own stages at the festival.
  50. - Bush band performing. A bush band playing. The bush band revival of the 1970s reconstructed a dance repertoire from collected tunes and colonial songbooks.
  51. - Christine Anu
  52. - Verbrugghen Hall
  53. - The Conservatorium from the Botanic Garden. The Sydney Conservatorium seen from the Royal Botanic Garden. Its castellated Gothic front is the surviving stable block.
  54. - Concert grand on stage. A concert grand on a Sydney concert platform. Australian concert halls import their instruments, and a single concert grand can cost as much as a house.
  55. - Hordern Pavilion. The Hordern Pavilion at Moore Park in Sydney, built in 1924 for the Royal Agricultural Society. It became one of the country's main mid sized rock rooms.
  56. - Bon Scott statue, Fremantle. The statue of the AC/DC singer Bon Scott at Fishing Boat Harbour in Fremantle, unveiled in 2008. Scott was born in Scotland and raised in Fremantle, and died in London in 1980.
  57. - Bon Scott statue from the harbour side. The Bon Scott statue at Fremantle from another angle. Western Australia claims Scott as a local figure and the statue was paid for partly by public subscription.
  58. - Silverchair. 2008. The band formed at Newcastle in New South Wales while its members were still at school and had a number one album at fifteen.
  59. - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. 2008. Cave grew up at Warracknabeal in Victoria and formed the Birthday Party in Melbourne before moving to London and Berlin.
  60. - Nick Cave with Warren Ellis
  61. - Brisbane Bands pt 6 (1988 music documentary). A later part of the 1988 Brisbane bands documentary, covering the venues and the independent labels that formed around them. Brisbane's isolation from Sydney and Melbourne is part of the story it tells.
  62. - Brisbane Bands pt 1 (1988 music documentary). A 1988 documentary on the Brisbane band scene, the city that produced the Saints and the Go-Betweens. Queensland's licensing and policing under the Bjelke-Petersen government shaped what venues could operate.
  63. - THE SAINTS - IM STRANDED 1977. The Saints perform I'm Stranded, released in Brisbane in 1976. The single was recorded and pressed independently before the band had a label, and the British music press picked it up before Australia did.
  64. - Kev Carmody - I`ve Been Moved. Kev Carmody performs I've Been Moved. Carmody is a Murri songwriter from Queensland who worked as a stockman before recording, and his songs address dispossession directly.
  65. - Dr G. Yunupingu - Wiyathul (Live 2008). Wiyathul performed live in 2008, sung in Gumatj. The singer, publicly known as Dr G. Yunupingu, was born blind on Elcho Island and taught himself guitar strung for a right handed player while playing left handed.
  66. - Didgeridoo. A didgeridoo, known as yidaki in north east Arnhem Land. It is a northern instrument, documented in Arnhem Land rock art for at most about the last 1,500 years and recorded by Elkin in 1938 as known only in the eastern Kimberley and the northern third of the Northern Territory, so it is not a pan Australian or ancient national instrument.
  67. - Enmore Theatre. The Enmore Theatre in Sydney's inner west. It is among the oldest continuously operating live venues in the city and now hosts touring bands and comedy.
  68. - Performing at the Tamworth festival. A performance at the Tamworth Country Music Festival. The festival takes over the town's streets, pubs and halls for ten days each January.
  69. - Big Day Out at Perth. The Big Day Out at Perth in 2009. The festival travelled between capital cities each January, which is how touring economics worked across Australian distances.
  70. - Buskers at Fremantle Markets. Buskers at the Fremantle Markets in Western Australia. Street performance is a working circuit in Australian cities with its own permits and pitches.
  71. - Welcome Song from Thursday Island, Australia. A welcome song recorded on Thursday Island in the Torres Strait. Thursday Island is the administrative centre of the island group between Cape York and Papua New Guinea.
  72. - The Corner Hotel, Richmond. The Necks playing at the Corner Hotel in Richmond, Melbourne. The Corner is a front bar band room of the kind that carried Australian touring for decades.
  73. - Cunnamulla Fella statue. The Cunnamulla Fella statue in south west Queensland, marking the Slim Dusty song written by Stan Coster. Country music towns build monuments to the songs written about them.
  74. - Powderfinger at the Big Day Out. Powderfinger playing the Big Day Out in 2010, the year the Brisbane band announced it would break up. They were among the biggest selling Australian acts of their era.
  75. - Percy Grainger legacy lives on. ABC News on the Percy Grainger legacy. He left his collection and his machines to a museum he founded at the University of Melbourne.
  76. - MAHLER Sixth Symphony (Sydney Symphony Orchestra / Ashkenazy). The Sydney Symphony Orchestra performs Mahler's Sixth under Vladimir Ashkenazy, who was chief conductor from 2009 to 2013.
  77. - Playing a didgeridoo. A didgeridoo held for playing. Ethnomusicologists including Linda Barwick have recorded that while women have traditionally not played in ceremony, there is no blanket prohibition in informal settings, and a Mara woman was recorded playing proficiently in 1966.
  78. - Public cultural performance. A public cultural performance for visitors. Performances staged by the performers themselves for a paying audience are distinct from restricted ceremony, which is not photographed.
  79. - Stan Coster memorial. A memorial to the songwriter Stan Coster, who wrote the Cunnamulla Fella and other songs recorded by Slim Dusty. Coster worked as a drover and shearer.
  80. - Cygnet Repu Choir | The Torres Strait Islands: A Celebration. The Queensland Art Gallery presents a Torres Strait choir as part of an exhibition on the islands. Church choral singing and island dance sit alongside each other in Torres Strait musical life.
  81. - Real Wild Child - History of Australian Rock N Roll (2/8). An episode of Real Wild Child, a documentary history of Australian rock and roll. The series traced the local scene from the 1950s dance halls onward.
  82. - Kev Carmody, Paul Kelly & Tiddas : From Little Things, Big Things Grow (1993). Kev Carmody, Paul Kelly and Tiddas perform From Little Things Big Things Grow in 1993. Carmody and Kelly wrote the song about the Gurindji walk off at Wave Hill in 1966 and the return of land in 1975.
  83. - Composer Nigel Westlake's tribute to son. ABC News on Nigel Westlake's Missa Solis, written after the death of his son Eli. The work was commissioned and performed by Australian orchestras.
  84. - KEV CARMODY - MOONSTRUCK (LIVE @ 98.9FM). Kev Carmody live on 98.9FM, a Brisbane Aboriginal community radio station. Community radio carried First Nations music long before commercial stations did.
  85. - Music honour for Sculthorpe. ABC News reports a music honour for Peter Sculthorpe. He died in 2014, having composed for orchestra, string quartet and film.
  86. - Countdown: Prince Charles and Molly Meldrum outtakes (1977). Outtakes from a 1977 Countdown episode with Molly Meldrum. The programme's Sunday evening slot on ABC television made it the national shop window for pop music for thirteen years.
  87. - Deadly Music. NITV's Deadly Music surveys First Nations popular music in 2012, the year the channel began free to air broadcasting. The Deadly Awards ran from 1995 to 2013 and were the first national First Nations music honours.
  88. - The 7.30 Report - Missa Solis: Requiem for Eli. The 7.30 Report covers Missa Solis, Requiem for Eli. Westlake also wrote the score for the film Babe.
  89. - November 28, 2012. Yothu Yindi ARIA Hall of Fame interview.. An Australian Associated Press interview recorded at the 2012 ARIA Hall of Fame induction. The band's mixed line up was itself the argument the name made: yothu yindi means child and mother in Yolngu Matha.
  90. - Yothu Yindi ARIA's HALL OF FAME 2012. Yothu Yindi is inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2012. The band mixed bilma and yidaki with electric guitars and drum machines, and its members came from both Yolngu and non Aboriginal backgrounds.
  91. - Former Yothu Yindi frontman Yunupingu dies aged 56. A regional broadcaster reports the death of the Yothu Yindi frontman in 2013 at the age of 56. Under Yolngu practice his given name was withheld from public use after his death.
  92. - History Of Australian Country Music by Bill Hawkin PART 1. A history of Australian country music covering the bush ballad tradition and the transition to recorded country. The genre's Australian strand grew out of droving and shearing song as much as from American imports.
  93. - Live! In convservation - Jazz: the ongoing revolution. The State Library of Queensland hosts a discussion on jazz. Library and archive programmes are a significant route by which Australian music history is documented.
  94. - An Interview with Lior and composer Nigel Westlake about 'Compassion'. The Sydney Symphony Orchestra interviews Lior and Nigel Westlake about Compassion, a song cycle setting Hebrew and Arabic texts. The orchestra was founded in 1932 by the ABC.
  95. - Costello dances Midnight Oil style. ABC News files a short item on a politician imitating the Midnight Oil frontman's dancing. The band's stage presence was distinctive enough to be a national reference point.
  96. - History of Australian Country Music by Milan Obrenović IX. A survey of Australian country music history, tracing the Tamworth circuit and the artists who worked it.
  97. - Briggs & Dr G. Yunupingu - 'The Hunt' (live for Like A Version). The Hunt, recorded live for triple j in 2014, pairing the Yorta Yorta rapper Briggs with the Yolngu singer publicly known as Dr G. Yunupingu. The collaboration crossed hip hop and Yolngu song.
  98. - "From little things, big things grow": Paul Kelly, Kev Carmody remember Gough in song. Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody sing their Gurindji song at the memorial for Gough Whitlam in 2014. Whitlam poured soil into the hand of Vincent Lingiari at Daguragu, the moment the last verse describes.
  99. - Waltzing Matilda. A recording of Waltzing Matilda. Banjo Paterson wrote the words in Queensland in 1895, and the tune and the story of the swagman have several disputed origins.
  100. - My Island Home. 1987. Neil Murray wrote it for the band's Torres Strait born singer George Rrurrambu Burarrwanga, about his home on Elcho Island rather than the Torres Strait.
  101. - Yolngu Boy. 's line up joined Yolngu and Luritja musicians with a non Aboriginal songwriter, and it toured remote communities that touring circuits did not otherwise reach.
  102. - Australian Jazz Convention - 1976 Brisbane. Footage from the Australian Jazz Convention held in Brisbane in 1976. The convention has met annually since 1946, making it one of the longest running jazz gatherings anywhere according to its organisers.
  103. - Briggs at the Rolling Stone Live Lodge 2015. Briggs performing at a Rolling Stone Australia session in 2015, several years before Bad Apples Music broadened the audience for First Nations hip hop.
  104. - Deborah Cheetham : Why I declined to sing the national anthem at the 2015 AFL Grand Final. NITV interviews the Yorta Yorta soprano Deborah Cheetham Fraillon, who declined to sing the national anthem at the 2015 AFL Grand Final. Her objection was to the words rather than to the occasion.
  105. - Blackfella / Whitefella (2015 Remaster). Blackfella Whitefella by the Warumpi Band, formed at Papunya in the Northern Territory in 1980. The lyric asks for solidarity across the colour line and became a standard at remote community concerts.
  106. - Buried Country: Album captures history, drama of Aboriginal country music. ABC News covers the Buried Country album, a compilation of Aboriginal country music. The project recovered recordings by artists whose work had circulated mainly on mission stations and remote radio.
  107. - Up close with Malngay Yunupingu | yidaki master | Yothu Yindi & East Journey bands. A yidaki player from north east Arnhem Land discusses the instrument he plays with Yothu Yindi and East Journey. The yidaki is a northern instrument documented for roughly the last millennium, not a pan Australian one.
  108. - Skyhooks Documentary presented by Red Symons. A documentary on Skyhooks presented by the band's own guitarist. The Melbourne group's 1974 album Living In The 70's was banned in part by radio for its lyrics and still sold heavily.
  109. - When Rage first arrived - ABC TV archival footage. ABC archival footage of the first broadcast of Rage, the overnight music video programme that began in 1987. It has run continuously since and lets guest musicians programme the playlist.
  110. - Briggs ft. Caiti Baker - Here (Live at NRL Indigenous Round 2017). Briggs performs Here live at the NRL Indigenous Round in 2017. Briggs is a Yorta Yorta man from Shepparton in Victoria and co founded the label Bad Apples Music.
  111. - Memorial Celebration of the life of Dr. G. Yunupingu. A memorial celebration for the Yolngu singer known publicly as Dr G. Yunupingu, who died in 2017. He sang mostly in Yolngu Matha and Gumatj, and his 2008 debut reached the top of the Australian charts.
  112. - My History of Jazz in Australia - Bob Barnard. Bob Barnard gives a personal history of jazz in Australia at the Sydney Conservatorium. Barnard was a cornet player whose career ran from the 1950s.
  113. - INXS' first interview since the loss of Michael Hutchence | 60 Minutes Australia. The first interview given by INXS after the death of Michael Hutchence in 1997. The band formed in Sydney in 1977 and had, by then, played arenas worldwide.
  114. - Ngerraberrakernama (Wake Up) | Emily Wurramara | TEDxYouth@Sydney. Ngerraberrakernama, meaning wake up, performed at a TEDx event in Sydney in 2017. The song is sung in Anindilyakwa, the language of Groote Eylandt.
  115. - One the road with AC/DC for a very rare interview | 60 Minutes Australia. A rare interview with AC/DC recorded on tour by 60 Minutes Australia. The band formed in Sydney in 1973 around two brothers born in Glasgow who emigrated as children.
  116. - ITSEW01018 In the Studio Emily Wurramarra 2018. Emily Wurramara recorded in the studio in 2018. She is an Anindilyakwa woman from Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria and sings in Anindilyakwa as well as English.
  117. - Midnight Oil - Treaty (Live At The Domain, Sydney) ft. Yirrmal. Midnight Oil perform Treaty at the Domain in Sydney with Yirrmal, a Yolngu singer from north east Arnhem Land. The collaboration links the two bands that carried land rights into Australian rock radio in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
  118. - Baker Boy 'Feel the power of my blackness'. NITV interviews the Yolngu rapper Baker Boy, who raps in both Yolngu Matha and English. He grew up in Milingimbi and Maningrida in Arnhem Land.
  119. - Baker Boy - 'Mr La Di Da Di' live on The Set. Mr La Di Da Di performed live for triple j's The Set in 2018. The station's national youth network was one of the first to play Yolngu Matha language rap in high rotation.
  120. - The Seekers open up about fame, fortune and fallout | Australian Story. Australian Story on the Seekers, the Melbourne folk group that in 1965 became the first Australian act to sell large numbers of records in Britain and the United States according to the programme.
  121. - Treaty - Yothu Yindi & The Treaty Project (Live). The Treaty Project performs the song live with surviving and successor members of Yothu Yindi. The arrangement keeps the Gumatj language verses that the 1991 recording made familiar to listeners who did not speak them.
  122. - Paula Yates' first interview after Michael Hutchence's death | 60 Minutes Australia. Paula Yates interviewed by 60 Minutes Australia after the death of the INXS singer in a Sydney hotel room in November 1997. The coroner found the death was a suicide.
  123. - Peter Sculthorpe at 50 - ABC Four Corners profile (1979). A 1979 Four Corners profile of Sculthorpe at fifty. The programme was made when Australian orchestral programmes were still dominated by European repertoire.
  124. - Peter Sculthorpe on Australian music (from the ABC archives). Peter Sculthorpe on Australian music, drawn from the ABC archives. His works quote Torres Strait and Japanese material as well as Australian landscape imagery.
  125. - Percy Grainger's Synthesisers. ABC Classic on Percy Grainger's synthesisers. The Melbourne born composer built free music machines to escape fixed pitch and metre, decades before electronic music was established.
  126. - Peter Sculthorpe on the future of music (1971 performance and interview). Peter Sculthorpe performs and speaks about the future of music in a 1971 ABC recording. He argued for an Australian art music shaped by the sound of the continent rather than by European models.
  127. - Hawke Memorial: William Barton and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra play Down Under | ABC News. William Barton plays yidaki with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the memorial for Bob Hawke in 2019. Barton is a Kalkadungu musician who has worked to place the instrument in orchestral writing.
  128. - Thelma Plum - 'Better In Blak' (live for Like A Version). Better In Blak performed for triple j's Like A Version in 2019. Thelma Plum is a Gamilaraay woman from Brisbane and the song addresses racism directed at her online.
  129. - Robert Forster interview from '16 Lovers Lane' (The Go-Betweens) Great Australian Albums episode. Robert Forster of the Go-Betweens discusses 16 Lovers Lane for a Great Australian Albums episode. The Brisbane band was critically admired and commercially modest for most of its life.
  130. - Christine Anu - My Island Home | Sydney 2000 Olympics Closing Ceremony. Christine Anu sings My Island Home at the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000. Anu is a Torres Strait Islander singer from Cairns, and her 1995 version made the song nationally familiar.
  131. - Countdown (Australia)- Molly Meldrum Interviews Iggy Pop- July 8, 1979. Molly Meldrum interviews Iggy Pop on Countdown in July 1979. International acts routed through the programme because it was the only national television music slot in Australia.
  132. - Don Burrows and James Morrison: A friendship shaped by music | Australian Story. Australian Story on the friendship between the jazz musicians Don Burrows and James Morrison. Burrows taught at the Sydney Conservatorium and helped build a jazz education pathway in Australia.
  133. - Alice Skye, Jimblah, Christine Anu and Busby Marou: In Concert Together | ABC Australia. ABC Australia films a concert bringing together Alice Skye, Jimblah, Christine Anu and Busby Marou. The bill mixed First Nations and non Aboriginal artists across genres.
  134. - Dustyesky: Australia's 'fake genuine Russian choir' | Australian Story. Australian Story on Dustyesky, a choir of men from Mullumbimby who sing Russian repertoire without speaking Russian. It is an unusual case of Australian amateur choral life.
  135. - Aussie rock legend Jimmy Barnes' iconic 1988 interview | 60 Minutes Australia. A 1988 interview with the Cold Chisel singer, rebroadcast by 60 Minutes Australia. He was born in Glasgow and raised in the Adelaide suburb of Elizabeth, a postwar migrant housing estate.
  136. - East Arnhem Live Yothu Yindi [Official Video]. East Arnhem Live, produced by Yolngu Radio, films the band performing on Country rather than on a southern festival stage. The series was made by a Yolngu controlled broadcaster.
  137. - The Divinyls - Australian 60 Minutes Interview (1991). A 1991 Australian 60 Minutes interview with the Divinyls. The Sydney band's singer performed in a school uniform, a stage image that drew both attention and censure.
  138. - Electric Fields - From Little Things Big Things Grow (Official Video). Electric Fields, a duo pairing a Yankunytjatjara singer with an electronic producer, record their version of the Gurindji song. Their arrangement moves it from acoustic ballad to electronic soul.
  139. - Christine Anu - Australian Live Performance on Denton (1995). Christine Anu performs live on Australian television in 1995, the year her album Stylin' Up was released. The record put Torres Strait Islander language and rhythm into mainstream Australian pop.
  140. - MSO Live | Deborah Cheetham's "Dutala, star filled sky". The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra performs Dutala, star filled sky, by Deborah Cheetham Fraillon. The title is in Yorta Yorta language and the work entered a mainstream orchestral programme.
  141. - Baker Boy - Move (Live from Ulumbarra Theatre). Move, performed live from the Ulumbarra Theatre in Bendigo in 2020. The venue is a working theatre built inside the walls of the former Sandhurst Gaol.
  142. - Split Enz Australia Interview. Split Enz interviewed on Australian television. The band formed in Auckland and worked out of Melbourne, and its Australian and New Zealand histories are argued over on both sides of the Tasman.
  143. - 1967 HITS ARCHIVE: Friday On My Mind - Easybeats (mono). Friday On My Mind by the Easybeats, released in 1966. The band members met in a Sydney migrant hostel, and the song was recorded in London after the group moved there.
  144. - Australian National Anthem - 'Advance Australia Fair' (EN). A recording of Advance Australia Fair, adopted as the national anthem in 1984 after a national poll. Peter Dodds McCormick wrote it in the 1870s, and the words have been altered since.
  145. - Geoffrey Dr G. Yunupingu & Sydney Symphony Orchestra win Best Soundtrack Album | 2014 ARIA Awards. ARIA presents the award for Best Soundtrack Album to a recording made with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. The album was released after the singer's death in 2017 and was credited as Dr G. Yunupingu.
  146. - Original 'Pub With No Beer' for sale, now with plenty of amber liquid | ABC News. ABC News reports the sale of the hotel that inspired Slim Dusty's A Pub With No Beer. The 1957 single was the first Australian record to sell a million copies internationally, according to the ABC report.
  147. - My Island Home - Christine Anu (Live at Australian of the Year Awards 2021). My Island Home performed at the Australian of the Year Awards in 2021. The song has been sung by Warumpi Band, by Christine Anu and at two national ceremonies, and it now carries meanings well beyond its Elcho Island origin.
  148. - Baker Boy , AFL Grand Final Performance | 2021. The 2021 AFL Grand Final performance, played in Perth after the match was moved from Melbourne. Baker Boy raps in Yolngu Matha, a language with several thousand speakers.
  149. - Yothu Yindi's legacy lives on in Arnhem Land band King Stingray | ABC News. King Stingray, formed in north east Arnhem Land, is presented by ABC News as carrying the Yothu Yindi lineage into a new generation. Members of the band are related to the founders of the earlier group.
  150. - Is Australian country music misunderstood? | Going Country. ABC's Going Country asks whether Australian country music is misunderstood. The Tamworth Country Music Festival has run each January since 1973 and is the largest gathering of the genre in the country.
  151. - Yothu Yindi celebrates 30 years of 'Treaty' through a new publication l ABC News. ABC News marks thirty years of Treaty with a new publication about the song and the band. Yothu Yindi released the track in 1991 and the Filthy Lucre remix carried it into clubs and onto radio worldwide.
  152. - A montage of Molly Meldrum's evolving hat situation on Countdown 📷🤠 | RetroFocus | ABC Australia. An ABC RetroFocus montage of the Countdown host's hats across the show's run. The hat became as recognisable as the programme itself.
  153. - Midnight Oil - Lucky Country (triple j Live At The Wireless - Capitol Theatre, Sydney 1982). Midnight Oil perform Lucky Country at the Capitol Theatre in Sydney for triple j's Live At The Wireless. The band's frontman later served as a federal environment minister.
  154. - Christine Amphlett - Divinyls - 7:30 Interview. A 7.30 interview with the Divinyls singer. She was later diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and breast cancer, and died in 2013.
  155. - Red Hot Chili Peppers 2000-01-30 Big Day Out Festival, Melbourne, AU [PRO #1]. Footage from the Big Day Out in Melbourne on 30 January 2000. The Big Day Out ran as a touring festival from 1992 and for two decades was the main national circuit for large rock bills.
  156. - Warumpi Band - Jailanguru Pakarnu (Out From Jail) [Official Music Video]. Jailanguru Pakarnu, released in 1983, is widely described as the first rock single recorded in an Aboriginal language, in this case Luritja. Warner Music Australia issued the official clip.
  157. - 'World music' festival WOMADelaide celebrates 30 years | Art Works. ABC Arts covers thirty years of WOMADelaide in 2022. The festival has been held in Adelaide's Botanic Park since 1992 and programmes music from across the world alongside Australian acts.
  158. - "Australian treasure" Olivia Newton-John dies after long battle with breast cancer | ABC News. ABC News reports the death of Olivia Newton-John in 2022. She was born in Cambridge and raised in Melbourne, and had campaigned on cancer research for decades.
  159. - Singer John Farnham reveals cancer diagnosis and treatment | ABC News. ABC News reports the singer John Farnham disclosing a cancer diagnosis in 2022. His 1986 album Whispering Jack is among the highest selling records ever released in Australia.
  160. - Yothu Yindi Next Generation , Djapana Sunset Dreaming. Yolngu Radio presents a younger generation performing Djapana, the sunset song that Yothu Yindi recorded in the 1980s. ARDS is a Yolngu controlled organisation based in Arnhem Land.
  161. - Getting Heavy: How Parkway Drive turned to therapy to save the band | Australian Story documentary. Australian Story follows the Byron Bay band Parkway Drive. Heavy music has a substantial Australian export history that sits outside the pub rock narrative.
  162. - How The Seekers + Judith Durham took Aussie music global | A World of Their Own | Australian Story. A World of Their Own follows the Seekers and Judith Durham. Durham died in 2022, and the group's Myer Music Bowl concert in 1967 drew a crowd reported at around 200,000.
  163. - The Angels: Kickin' Down The Door - Documentary - Official Tralier. A trailer for a documentary on the Angels, an Adelaide band whose live call and response with audiences became a fixture of Australian pub rooms.
  164. - Baker Boy takes home five ARIAs in a celebration of First Nations talent | ABC News. ABC News reports Baker Boy taking five ARIA awards in 2022. The night was framed by the broadcaster as a breakthrough for First Nations musicians at the Australian industry awards.
  165. - NITV celebrates 10 Years of free to air with concert at Uluru | 10 Years | NITV. NITV marks ten years of free to air broadcasting with a concert at Uluru in 2022. The service began as a subscription channel in 2007 and joined SBS in 2012.
  166. - Paul Kelly - From Little Things Big Things Grow (Live at Making Gravy 2022, Melbourne). From Little Things Big Things Grow performed at Making Gravy in Melbourne in 2022. The song was written by Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly and has become a protest standard in Australia.
  167. - Kylie Minogue with Dannii Minogue - All The Lovers | Live & Proud: Sydney WorldPride Opening Concert. Kylie Minogue performs with Dannii Minogue at the Sydney WorldPride opening concert in 2023. Kylie Minogue began on Australian television before her recording career.
  168. - 45 Spotlight: Yothu Yindi - Treaty / Yolngu Boy (1991). A record collector examines the 1991 seven inch single pairing Treaty with Yolngu Boy. The physical artefact shows how the song was marketed in Australia before the remix crossed to international dance floors.
  169. - The legacy of Indigenous leader Yunupingu, who has died aged 74 | 7.30. ABC's 7.30 marks the death in 2023 of the Gumatj leader who fought the Yirrkala bark petitions and the Gove land rights case. His work sits behind the political demand that Treaty put to music.
  170. - Radio Birdman 1996 97 BDO interview. Radio Birdman interviewed at the Big Day Out in the mid 1990s. The Sydney band formed in 1974 and is usually placed at the start of Australian punk, several years before the term was current locally.
  171. - First Nations soprano Deborah Cheetham Fraillon is reviving opera for everyone | The Drum | ABC News. The 7.30 report on the Yorta Yorta soprano who founded Short Black Opera and wrote Pecan Summer, described as the first Australian opera by a First Nations composer, staged from 2010.
  172. - Building Australia's first Obscure Orchestra of experimental music | Classic 100 | ABC Australia. ABC follows the building of an experimental orchestra of unusual instruments. The project sat outside the standard concert repertoire entirely.
  173. - Yothu Yindi - 'Treaty' (Live at NIMAs 2023). Treaty performed live at the National Indigenous Music Awards in Darwin in 2023, filmed by triple j. The song has outlived the political moment that produced it and is now a standard at Australian festivals.
  174. - Thelma Plum - 'Better in Blak' (Live at NIMAs 2023). Better In Blak at the National Indigenous Music Awards in Darwin in 2023. The NIMAs have run since 2004 and are held during the Darwin Festival.
  175. - ACDC: Rise of Rock Icons - Blood & Thunder: The Sound of Alberts - S01 E02 - Music Documentary. A documentary episode on Albert Productions, the Sydney company whose studio and songwriters shaped AC/DC and the Easybeats. The Alberts sound was made in Sydney rather than in London or Los Angeles.
  176. - The Sydney Symphony performs Sibelius' Fifth Symphony. The Sydney Symphony Orchestra performs Sibelius. The orchestra is resident at the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall.
  177. - 50 years of music: How Cold Chisel became Aussie rock legends | Australian Story. Australian Story marks fifty years of Cold Chisel in 2024. The band formed in Adelaide in 1973 and its live reputation was built on the pub circuit rather than on radio.
  178. - Peter Garrett Reveals All About THAT Protest Performance At The Sydney Olympics. Peter Garrett discusses the black suits printed with the word SORRY that Midnight Oil wore at the Sydney Olympic closing ceremony in 2000. The federal government of the day had refused to apologise.
  179. - I Am Australian (Youth Collaboration) [Official Music Video]. I Am Australian performed in a youth collaboration by the Bushwackers, a bush band formed in Melbourne in 1971. The song was written by Bruce Woodley and Dobe Newton in 1987.
  180. - Why live music venues have hit rock bottom | The Business | ABC News. ABC's The Business reports in 2024 on the financial state of Australian live music venues. Small and mid sized rooms closed in numbers after the pandemic and under rising costs.
  181. - Thelma Plum 'Better In Blak' Ft. Barkaa live at One Night Stand 2024. Thelma Plum performs with Barkaa at triple j's One Night Stand in 2024. One Night Stand took a free national radio concert to a different regional town each year.
  182. - Countdown (Australia)- Molly Meldrum Interviews Bon Scott- 1977. Molly Meldrum interviews the AC/DC singer Bon Scott on Countdown in 1977. Countdown ran on ABC television from 1974 to 1987 and was for years the only national pop programme in Australia.
  183. - Classic Choir: The Christmas Card by Deborah Cheetham Fraillon. The Christmas Card, written by Deborah Cheetham Fraillon and performed by an ABC Classic choir. Her catalogue moved First Nations composition into the concert hall repertoire.
  184. - Dami Im - Unstoppable (SIA) | Australian of the Year Awards 2025. Dami Im performs at the Australian of the Year Awards in 2025. She was born in South Korea, moved to Brisbane as a child and represented Australia at Eurovision in 2016.
  185. - Mitch Tambo and Voice of Lele have recently released their own rendition of 'My Island Home' | NITV. NITV covers a new rendition of My Island Home by Mitch Tambo and Voice of Lele. NITV is the National Indigenous Television service, which began free to air broadcasting in 2012.
  186. - Emily Wurramara - Lady Blue - Live at the 2024 Australian Women in Music Awards. Lady Blue performed at the Australian Women in Music Awards in 2024. The awards were established in 2018 to address the under representation of women in the Australian industry.
  187. - Iconic Australian band celebrates 50 years with documentary | 7NEWS. A 7NEWS item on an Australian band marking fifty years with a documentary release in 2025.
  188. - Baker Boy , THICK SKIN (AFL Grand Final Performance | 2025). Baker Boy performs Thick Skin at the 2025 AFL Grand Final. The performance put Yolngu Matha language rap in front of one of the largest television audiences in Australia.
  189. - MSO 2025 UK & Europe Tour. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra on tour in the United Kingdom and Europe in 2025. Australian orchestras tour internationally rarely because of the cost and distance involved.
  190. - Neil Finn and Sydney Children’s Choir perform Crowded House’s classic Weather With You. Neil Finn performs Weather With You with the Sydney Children's Choir for ABC Classic. Crowded House was formed in Melbourne in 1985 and its membership drew on both Australia and New Zealand.
  191. - 2005 ARIA Awards Highlights. Highlights from the 2005 ARIA Awards. The Australian Recording Industry Association awards have been presented since 1987 and replaced an earlier industry ceremony.
  192. - Split Enz reuniting for first time in 17 years | 7.30. ABC's 7.30 covers Split Enz reuniting after seventeen years. The report was broadcast in 2026.
  193. - 1997 Ch 9 TV Ad Australia JJJ Hottest 100 Case IH Cotton Header Kleenex Double Number Plate Game. A 1997 television advertisement for the triple j Hottest 100. The listener voted countdown began in 1989 and became an annual fixture of the Australian summer.
  194. - Midnight Oil - Beds are Burning (Sydney 2000 Olympic Games Closing Ceremony). Midnight Oil perform Beds Are Burning at the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000, wearing the SORRY suits. The song is about returning land in central Australia to its owners.
  195. - How the Yothu Yindi song man became a rock star leader | Australian Story. Australian Story traces the path of the Yothu Yindi frontman from the Yolngu community at Yirrkala to a national stage. The band's 1991 single Treaty came out of the Barunga Statement of 1988 and the promise of a treaty that did not follow. ABC broadcast the profile in 2026.
  196. - The Rowdy History of Australian Pub Rock. A survey of Australian pub rock, the circuit of hotel front bars and beer barns that supported touring bands through the 1970s and 1980s. The rooms were loud, cheap and licensed, and they shaped the volume of the bands that played them.
  197. - Dance of the Knights from Romeo and Juliet , Melbourne Symphony Orchestra | Classic 100 in Concert. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra plays Prokofiev's Dance of the Knights. The Classic 100 is an annual listener voted countdown run by ABC Classic.
  198. - Beethoven's Ode to Joy performed by Melbourne Symphony Orchestra & Chorus | Classic 100 in Concert. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Chorus perform Beethoven for ABC Classic's Classic 100. The MSO was founded in 1906 and is the oldest professional orchestra in Australia according to its own account.
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