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9 - The Development of the Australian Pop Charts and the Changing Meaning of the ‘Number One’ Single

from Part II - Encounters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2024

By
Jadey O’Regan  and
Tim Byron
Edited by
Amanda Harris  and
Clint Bracknell
Amanda Harris
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
Clint Bracknell
Affiliation:
University of Western Australia
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Summary

This chapter explores the history and present of the singles charts, and the phenomenon of the number one single, in a specifically Australian context. The history of the Australian singles charts are explored, from their beginnings in Go-Set magazine in 1966, based on sales of physical product, to the present-day situation, where the ARIA singles charts are primarily based on listens on streaming services. The chapter goes on to discuss the ways in which these differing consumption methods over the years affects the composition of the charts. While the charts in Australia often reflect overseas success by international artists, the particular music industry ecosystem in Australia can affect the success of different music.Similarly, the number one singles by Australian artists from the last decade are discussed, suggesting that it is increasingly difficult to have Australian chart success without international success.

Keywords

Australian musicAustralian popular musicpop musicARIAsingles chartsstreaming platformshistoryproduction
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Music in Australia , pp. 148 - 161
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Further Reading

Arrow, M., Friday on Our Minds (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2009).Google Scholar
Byron, T. and O’Regan, J., Hooks in Popular Music (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collins, S. and O’Grady, P., ‘Off the Charts: The Implications of Incorporating Streaming Data into the Charts’ in R. Nowak, and A.Whelan, (eds.), Networked Music Cultures: Contemporary Approaches, Emerging Issues (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), pp. 151–69.Google Scholar
Covach, J. and Flory, A., What’s That Sound? An Introduction to Rock and Its History, 5th ed. (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2018).Google Scholar
Giuffre, L., ‘You Were Watching Video Hits: The End of an Era for Australian Music Television’ in Giuffre, L. and Spirou, P. (eds.), Routes, Roots and Routines: Selected Papers from the 2011 Australia/New Zealand IASPM Conference (Sydney: Macquarie University, 2012), pp. 102–10.Google Scholar
Hakanen, E. A., ‘Counting Down to Number One: The Evolution of the Meaning of the Popular Music Charts’, Popular Music, 17(1) (1998), 95–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huber, A., ‘Making Time Stand Still: How to “Fix” the Transient Top 40’, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 13(2) (2010), 147–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morrow, G. and Beckett, J., ‘The Changing Role and Function of Music Charts in the Contemporary Music Economy’ in Morrow, G., Nordgård, D. and Tschmuck, P. (eds.), Rethinking the Music Business: Music Contexts, Rights, Data, and COVID-19 (New York: Springer, 2022), pp. 239–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ordanini, A., Nunes, J. C. and Nanni, A., ‘The Featuring Phenomenon in Music: How Combining Artists of Different Genres Increases a Song’s Popularity’, Marketing Letters, 29 (2018), 486, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-018-9476-3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seabrook, J., The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory (New York: Jonathan Cape, 2015).Google Scholar
Stanley, B., Yeah Yeah Yeah – The Story of Modern Pop (London: Faber & Faber, 2013).Google Scholar
Stratton, J., ‘Nation Building and Australian Popular Music in the 1970s and 1980s’, Continuum, 20(2) (2006), 246, https://doi.org/10.1080/10304310600641778.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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