Search - Various Artists :: 50 Years of Australian Rock N Roll

Great walk through the history of Australian music: 50s-now

dfle3 | Australia | 03/28/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

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This is, by and large, a great compilation of Australian music since the 1950's to up until recently. I do have some quibbles, as you would with this kind of compilation...e.g. why certain bands aren't represented or why this song instead of that song by this or that band got selected. Perhaps Warner Music didn't have access to other songs from other labels?



The three cd compilation begins with Johnny O'Keefe "The wild one" singing "The wild one". Terrific song, from the man who pioneered rock'n'roll in Australia, in the latter part of the 50's. Iggy Pop covered this song in the 80's I think, and he may be doing it again, with Aussie band Jet backing him, for the actual 50th anniversary of Aussie music. The first two or three songs are in the "rock'n'roll" style of the 50's.



After that, there's a handful of songs in the 1960s style. The Atlantics "Bombora" is a great inclusion-it's an instrumental and I think I heard in some docu on Australian music that they invented a certain kind of guitar sound...not sure whether it was the "surf" sound or a "machine gun" kind of sound. There is the original and best version of The Loved One's "The loved one"-which was covered by INXS for their great album "Kick". The dominant band of the 60's, in Australia, The Easybeats, do their famous song "Friday on my mind", which was covered by the likes of Bruce Springsteen and David Bowie. Haven't heard those covers, but the original is an all time classic.



From there on and well into the second cd is a great focus on 70's music. Many of the songs are all time classics, in my view: The real thing/Turn up your radio/Eagle rock/Howzat! etc.etc.etc. There are also some interesting tracks, like Zoot's prog-rock, proto-metal version of The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby".



Perhaps it might be an idea to do some more analysis of genres in this compilation [I've gone over the early rock'n'roll songs]: if you like punk type stuff, there is a The Saints song which is regarded as a milestone punk song: "I'm stranded", then there is The Living End, a band that has been influenced by and influenced US band Greenday, with "Second solution" [that's one selection that I would have changeded...TLE have lots of other songs greater than that]. 'Discovered' a song by Grinspoon on this cd called "Just ace", which has a very punk guitar sound, though the band aren't punk, I don't think, and are contemporary.



If you like hard-rock to music that verges on heavy metal, there are some tracks for you too: Hush "Get rocked", The Angels "Take a long line", Rose Tattoo "Bad boy for love" and Silverchair's "Tomorrow", which is sort of like Pearl Jam meets Metallica [Black album period]. Wolfmother are a band which won a Grammy the other year for "best hard rock album" or some such. Their song "Woman" is included.



Really, this compilation covers most popular genres...instrumentals, pop, rock, hard rock, punk, alternative.



My main gripe would be that it was a missed opportunity to 'save' some songs that are very hard to find, e.g. The Manikins "Cruel world", Jane Clifton "Girl on the wall" and Lynne Randell's "Ciao baby" to name a few. Or having better songs by acts not included, e.g. "All torn down" by The Living End instead of the song on this compilation. Another gripe is the list of acts which don't make an appearance...no INXS, AC/DC or Mondo Rock. These are some of the greatest bands of all time, and they aren't represented! HUGE omissions are the songs "Green" by Alex Lloyd and "Man overboard" by Do Re Mi...two songs that would top my list of the greatest songs of all time.



The last big gripe is that New Zealand bands/songs take up space in this compilation...three, I think. It's not that I don't like New Zealand music, some of it's great and has done very well here. It's just why would you put these on an Australian compilation? In any case, I like the New Zealand songs on this compilation [by Split Enz, Dragon and Jenny Morris].



A terrific primer on Australian music.



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