Latest news with #Australianmusic
SBS Australia
27-07-2025
- Entertainment
- SBS Australia
Never Tear Us Apart by INXS voted as Australia's favourite song
Aussie power ballad Never Tear Us Apart by 1980s rock royalty INXS has taken out the title of number one song on Triple J's special edition Hottest 100 countdown dedicated to Australian artists. Audiences have been voting for months to reveal Australia's favourite song in the annual countdown that showcases some of the nation's best homegrown music talent. Celebrating on behalf of the band, founding member and drummer Jon Farriss joined the radio station on Saturday night to reflect on the win. "We feel so blessed and we're very grateful," Farriss said. Australian hip hop royalty The Hilltop Hoods came in at number two with their 2003 hit The Nosebleed Section. Queensland pop duo The Veronicas and their 2007 hit Untouched, Missy Higgins' breakout 2004 single Scar and Don't Dream It's Over by Crowded House rounded out the top five. Reflecting on their number three spot, Jess and Lisa Origliasso said for "just two girls from Brisbane", the countdown had brought them to tears. "We're on top of the world right now ... this is such a huge honour for us," Jess Origliasso said. Higgins also joined the radio station, telling presenters she couldn't believe Scar still resonated with Australian audiences more than 20 years since its debut. "I can't quite believe it — I feel like the luckiest person ever," she said moments after the song was played. Missy Higgins says she feels like "the luckiest person ever" after Scar came in at number four. Source: AAP / Joel Carrett The countdown is typically comprised of the best songs of the year from all over the world but the youth station hosted a special mid-year poll dedicated to Aussie artists and tracks to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Belgian-born Australian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Gotye squeezed in to cinch the number 10 spot with his 2011 hit Somebody That I Used To Know. Other notable mentions included Australian music great John Farnham, voted in at number 15 with his 1986 hit You're the Voice. Daryl Braithwaite's The Horses came in at number 30, with Natalie Imbruglia's Torn voted in at 32. More than 2.65 million votes were tallied for the countdown, the station's fourth-largest poll, according to the broadcaster. Eight tracks in the countdown were separated by fewer than 10 votes and only 30 votes separated songs 100 and 101. The countdown kicked off at 10am AEST on Saturday and wrapped at 8pm.
ABC News
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Mariae Cassandra 6 Pack
2025 Unearthed High champion Mariae Cassandra stops past triple j Unearthed to drop off her 6 pack. 6 tracks from 6 Australian emerging artists she's a ride or die for: Life has been soaring for Mariae Cassandra since winning Unearthed High in 2025. She's released a bunch of gorgeous tunes, toured nationally with Wafia and Kita Alexander, she's played at festivals like Laneway and Hyperfest, she'll be taking to stage at BIGSOUND 2025, plus heaps moreeee. As we're deep in Unearthed High season for 2025, now's a good a time as ever to shoutout plenty of Unearthed High alumni… in fact, each artist from this list has been in the competition <3 Australian artists getting around Australian artists? Ya love to see it.
SBS Australia
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- SBS Australia
Why do some Australian musicians sing with a foreign accent?
Mitch Thompson from country/pop act Seaforth sounds straight out of Nashville — yet he grew up in Sydney. So why does he sing with an American accent? "I have to really think about it to sing in an Australian accent," Thompson, 35, told The Feed. "It's almost like a different section of the brain when I start singing — a different muscle memory of 'this is how words sound when I sing, this is how words sound when I talk'." Thompson recalls being at a singing competition where he was told he sounded too similar to Missy Higgins, who sings with a strong Australian accent. "One of the judges was like: 'You can't copy Miss Higgins' voice so much. It's a little too Aussie,'" Thompson said. So, his singing accent shifted, and by the time he moved to Nashville, the world's country music capital, almost a decade ago, Thompson had lost all trace of Missy Higgins. "Anytime I go off stage, there'll be at least one person that's like, 'Where's your accent go when you sing?' Or people that didn't know that Seaforth is Australian." Seaforth has now amassed close to 500,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. Mitch Thompson sings with an American accent as frontman of the Australian country-pop duo Seaforth. Source: Getty / Michael Hickey "The accent and how I sing is just purely based off the music I was listening to," Thompson said. "There was never an active: 'I need to sound like Keith Urban' for it to work over here." There's been a significant drop in local acts making it into Australia's top charts, partly due to the rise of streaming services such as Spotify with algorithms that favour US and UK acts, according to music researcher and former record label manager Tim Kelly. "It used to be the case that you can make a living as an Australian artist in Australia ... like Hilltop Hoods ... or Powderfinger ... who sold most of their recordings and did most of their touring in Australia," Kelly told The Feed. "Now it's deemed that there isn't enough money in the Australian market and you've got to have two other markets as well as Australia." When the accent doesn't fit the song The Australian accent can feel like a hindrance, due to the pronunciation of certain sounds, particularly 's' and 'r', according to Ariana Rigazzi, a vocal coach based in Melbourne. "In one syllable you're pronouncing two vowels [in the Australian accent] … basically your tongue is moving while you're pronouncing that one syllable," Rigazzi said. "And that can be a hindrance while you're singing. So it's easier to do an American vowel instead of an Australian vowel to be able to actually get to the note and not have your tongue move." And Thompson says it would sound "jarring" if he sang in an Australian accent. "You lose the rhymes in certain words that in an American accent would rhyme with the next [word] — you can make it rhyme," he said. 'You've got to sound more like us' Australian artists are competing more than ever with the US and UK market to find an audience — and an accent or sound change may be encouraged by Australian labels to appeal to a wider audience, Kelly said. "There's this gravity of conformity that for new artists that would say, if you want to succeed over here [predominantly in the US and UK] ... you've got to sound more like us." "And the industry supports that pressure because managers and record labels and agents and everyone else is going: 'We want you to sound like the stuff that's doing well.'" Music researcher Tim Kelly says Australian artists are having to compete with the US and UK markets more than ever. Source: Supplied / casimaria Algorithms within music streaming services are how many people now discover new artists; it also plays into the demand for Australian artists to adapt their sound. "There's this pressure to get on the algorithm, to sound like other people, to be able to appeal to international markets by leaning into what works in those markets," Kelly says. Do Australian musicians have to change their sound to find success? Kelly says there's a cultural influence from international markets that has shaped the sound of Australian music — and it's worked. The Kid LAROI, Vance Joy, RÜFÜS DU SOL and Troye Sivan are among Australia's top streamed Spotify artists and yet international audiences would be forgiven for not realising they're Australian. "[There is] increased pressure for you to be able to succeed in other markets and not get locked into an Australian context. There is a debate about whether if you become a triple j favourite — that's great in Australia — but it might lock you out of other markets," he said. "Then you're just seen as an Australian artist." There are exceptions. Acts like Amyl and the Sniffers, Shady Nasty, DMA's, Sticky Fingers, Stella Donnelly, Courtney Barnett, and Hilltop Hoods, who all sound distinctly Australian and have found international success. "The artists that are doing well … Amyl and the Sniffers, King Gizzard, Tame Impala have an Australian-ess about them that has actually served them well in an international context," Kelly said. Amyl and the Sniffers, whose sound is defined by the distinctive voice and accent of lead singer Amy Taylor, recently played at Glastonbury festival in the UK: and Thompson believes global audiences are waiting with open arms to embrace more Australian-sounding music. "An Australian accent would actually stand out more than anything in this market."
The Guardian
14-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘It's unfeasible to run this model much longer': is this the end of the Australian regional tour?
In late April, Australian folk singer-songwriter Kim Churchill took to Instagram with a plea to his fans. After driving 2,500km to Cairns on a national tour with more than 50 stops, Churchill warned that his show at Tanks Arts Centre was teetering on being cancelled. 'Ticket sales have been so slow,' he wrote. 'It's looking like it's going to cost me $3,000 to $5,000 to play my own show.' Days later, accompanying a video of cheering fans, the singer wrote that the show broke even two hours before doors – and that he'd 'do it all again' for Cairns. This 11th-hour turnaround exemplifies the high-wire risks and rewards of regional touring for Australian musicians. This year, a host of high-profile artists have toured regional Australia, including Fanning Dempsey National Park, Sarah Blasko, Northlane, Lime Cordiale and Amy Shark, with hard-crunching bands Thy Art is Murder and Make Them Suffer heading out this month. Meanwhile, in the wake of the demise of Groovin the Moo, regional festival Spilt Milk – held later this year – has pulled off the show-stopping 2025 double bill of Kendrick Lamar and Doechii, while Tasmania's independent Party in the Paddock festival drew record crowds in February. Amid these promising signs, Australian artists are measuring a genuine desire to take their music to regional areas against significant financial, logistical and ethical challenges, which include rising travel costs, often gruelling distances between shows, climate concerns and a wider trend for last-minute ticket buying. Live music venue operators in regional areas are also feeling the precarity of the moment, particularly as public liability premiums have climbed steeply since the Covid pandemic began. Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning And with approximately seven million Australians living in rural and remote areas – and the discoverability of Australian music at an 'historical low', according to Creative Australia analysis released this week – reaching these audiences remains vital. Before Kim Churchill's almost-cancellation in Cairns, Brisbane rock trio DZ Deathrays made a similar appeal to fence-sitting ticket buyers in February, sharing that they'd been advised to cancel their show at the Theatre Royal in Castlemaine 'and potentially others' on their regional tour. 'We've decided to run the risk of ruin and continue the show for those who have already bought tickets, but it's unfeasible to run this model much longer,' the band wrote on social media. Speaking to Guardian Australia in April, DZ Deathrays drummer Simon Ridley summed it up another way: 'It's a lot having a thing on sale for three months and having to wait right until the end to figure out whether it was worth it or not.' While the Castlemaine show scraped through, a later gig in Albury, Western Australia, was cancelled after the venue 'got a bit too skittish' about low ticket sales. The previous weekend, their first-ever show in Bundaberg – Ridley and bandmate Shane Parsons' home town – had gone from under 100 presales to becoming the sold-out tour highlight. As Ridley sees it, 'It's just gambling, and some people don't want to gamble.' Gamilaraay singer-songwriter and self-described 'country girl at heart' Thelma Plum is currently travelling Australia for her winkingly titled I'm Sorry, Where is That? regional tour. Growing up between Brisbane and her grandparents' farm in Delungra, New South Wales, Plum recalls the profound impact of seeing First Nations pop duo Shakaya live as a teen. Despite the occasional 'logistical nightmare' of regional touring, she feels an abiding commitment to show up for her fans outside the capital cities. 'Visibility is really important to me,' she says. 'There's just something really deadly and empowering about seeing young Aboriginal girls singing back at me.' Artists hitting the road are also motivated by reaching new listeners who may otherwise not engage with Australian music on streaming services. Creative Australia's latest report found only 8% of the top 10,000 artists streamed in Australia in 2024 were Australian, as listeners increasingly favour music by US artists. Having observed this shift, the MusicNSW managing director, Joe Muller, frames regional touring as an antidote to the 'algorithmification' of music discovery. 'The idea that your audience is in that black box in your pocket, off you go and conquer, has certainly created challenges,' he says. 'We don't have a supply problem. It is a demand problem in the sense that our audiences are looking all across the world for the art they consume, rather than the historic models of looking to their own communities first.' No strangers to regional touring, punk-rock mainstays Frenzal Rhomb are back on the road to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their album A Man's Not a Camel. Now with day jobs and middle-aged commitments, guitarist Lindsay 'The Doctor' McDougall says the band's decision to only book weekend shows is in sharp contrast to their first nationwide tour in 2001, which saw them driving from town to town across three months with Californian bands Mad Caddies and Strung Out. ('Mad Caddies couldn't hack it and went home,' McDougall quips.) His memories of that tour include inviting the 20-odd kids who showed up in Katherine to play with them on stage, and an irate punter in Mount Isa ending the night crying on frontman Jay Whalley's shoulder. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion On this latest tour, Frenzal Rhomb is happily a legacy act with multigenerational appeal. 'People who listened to us in the 90s are about the same age as us, but they've all made better financial decisions,' McDougall says. 'They can afford to come and buy tickets for their kids.' Having lost money touring the US, the band are now happy to break even at home. 'It's not like we need to tour here to build up our cash reserves to go conquer some other continent,' McDougall adds. 'We're lucky there's enough people in Australia to come watch us.' With vast distances to cover, often by plane, the environmental impact of regional touring is also a key concern. In 2024, Green Music Australia updated its Sound Country sustainability guide, which includes pointers for musicians on topics such as low-carbon transport, waste reduction, ethical merchandise and First Nations principles. Paul Kelly, David Bridie and Montaigne are among the guide's advocates, as well as Missy Higgins and Regurgitator, who have both publicly strived for carbon-neutral national tours. Muller, who will oversee the next Regional & Remote Music Summit in Byron Bay this July, is focused on sustainability, both in terms of minimising environmental impact and helping regional artists build sustainable careers. Regarding the environmental footprint of regional touring, he argues, 'The impact of delivering one exclusive show in a metro centre and expecting all of your audience to travel in is far greater than getting in the Tarago and meeting people where they live.' The considerations of prominent artists touring regional Australia is just one part of a larger, more complex picture. At the inaugural Regional & Remote Music Summit, held in Darwin last August, music industry experts and policymakers discussed strategies to support musicians living in regional and remote areas, including grassroots and government-backed opportunities to tour. The event's executive producer, Laura Harper, highlights 'inbound' music tourism initiatives such as the Queensland Music Trails as a necessary counterbalance to the 'fly-in, fly-out model of touring'. Harper also notes a shift towards artists and managers booking their own tour routes rather than relying on major tour promoters. 'It's really hard to predict audiences post-Covid,' she says. 'There's not a lot of guarantees now. I think artists are probably a bit more willing to take a risk, because they're the ones trying to build an audience.' And while the perilous state of Australian music festivals draw headlines, Muller points to the 'absolutely thriving' smaller regional festivals that 'really nail the audience experience for the folks who are of that place'. He cites the Aboriginal arts and culture-focused Giiyong festival on the far south coast of NSW, while Frenzal Rhomb's McDougall enthuses about DIY heavy metal festival Blacken Open Air, held on Arrernte country near Alice Springs, which his band are booked to play this September. No matter the hurdles and broader trends, regional touring remains deeply ingrained in the Australian music ecosystem. Remembering how it felt when Frenzal Rhomb and Jebediah played Bundaberg in his youth, DZ Deathrays' Simon Ridley sums up the eternal appeal for artists and fans alike: 'It just means a lot when a band comes through your home town.'
