There’s no single Australian sound, but there’s a feeling you learn to recognise. Records made a long way from anywhere, sharpened in sweaty pubs and on long drives between gigs, with a dry humour and a straight-talking voice that’s hard to fake.
New to it? Start with Lonerism. If you want something from this decade, make it Genesis Owusu’s Smiling With No Teeth.
For a long time, Australian bands had to leave to be taken seriously. Nick Cave moved from Melbourne to London in 1980 and built the Bad Seeds in Europe, and records like Henry’s Dream still carry that outsider’s edge.
Those who stayed built their own scene in the pubs. Radio Birdman and Hoodoo Gurus came out of Sydney, and Midnight Oil took Indigenous land rights to the world with Diesel and Dust. When The Church’s “Under the Milky Way” became a hit in America, it was proof that something homegrown could travel.
The real shift came when triple j began broadcasting nationally from 1989. For the first time, a kid in Perth could hear the same new band as a kid in Brisbane, and alternative bands that commercial radio ignored started topping the charts. Silverchair were still at school in Newcastle when Frogstomp went to number one. Regurgitator and Custard gave Brisbane its oddball streak, and You Am I became the great Sydney guitar band of the decade.
Today Australian artists don’t have to leave at all. Courtney Barnett earned a Grammy nomination writing about life in Melbourne, and Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever signed to Sub Pop, the label that launched Nirvana, without moving house. Perth gave the world Tame Impala and Spacey Jane, and Canberra’s Genesis Owusu won ARIA Album of the Year with Smiling With No Teeth.
Some of the best records here deserve a much bigger audience. Melbourne’s Dirty Three turn violin, guitar and drums into something wild and stormy on Cinder. Underground Lovers’ Leaves Me Blind is one of the great overlooked records of the 90s, and Dick Diver make the kind of quiet guitar pop you end up playing every day. Every record in our Australian vinyl collection is a new pressing, and every one you buy here supports an independent Australian record store.
Want the 90s story? Head to Alternative. Want guitars and diary-entry lyrics? Try Indie. Want the pub-rock roots? There’s Rock.
