Australian rock

["James J. Lippard" <Lippard@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA>]

                   Idols and Worshippers
                  Rock Music in Australia

  In Australia's large cities, and that's where most of the country's 16
million inhabitants live, there's no escaping rock music.  New "hits" - the
most popular compositions, that is - blare on all the radio stations.  In the
summer your shouts wouldn't be heard by half the people on any beach, even if
you were drowning, since they are sitting with their earphones on, listening
to rock music.
  And how is Australia really different from the USA or England in this
regard?  It isn't!  Australian rock performers are successful in their own
country if they bring home laurels from America.  And they get them there only
if the coincide with the "wave" dominating the Anerican (sic) market.  There's
nothing surprising in this, since the trends and politics in the rock music
world are created not by the musicians themselves (even if they are devilishly
talented), but by a conglomerate, a hierarchy of managers from the group's
manager to the administrative board of the record corporation.  It is they who
manipulate and simply support the disc jockeys who propagandize rock music on
radio and television and who in turn mold public taste.  If they beat it into
your head for half a year running that Billy Idol, for example, is a wonderful
musician, in all likelihood you'll believe it.

  By no means are domestic groups the idols of Australian young people.  The
singer for the well-known Australian rock group INXS, Jenny Morris, admits
that "Australia is much too Americanized, and too often Australians look to
America for approval."
  Perhaps it is true that no one is a prophet in his own country.  Even
Australian rock artists who later became well known, such as Olivia
Newton-John, the Bee Gees, Pseudo Echo, Men at Work, singer John Farnham, and
others, travel to the USA and Britain for fame and money.

  As for the creation of idols, without which the entertainment industry
couldn't flourish, here too the techniques used by local business are not
independent but borrowed.  The same portraits and interviews, the same popular
magazine stories with intimate details about the lives of "stars," rumors,
gossip, portrait t-shirts, pins, and posters with the names and images of the
idols.
  It's somehow awkward to talk about rock music in esthetic terms, even though
the music obviously does sometimes attain the level of real art.  But ever
since the Beatles no one in the West bothers with such discussions.
Everywhere in the reviews of new "hits" we read "pop industry" and "show
business."
  The generally accepted opinion is that pop has fallen into a protracted
crisis.  The businessmen of show business have managed to tame and
commercialize the rebels of yesteryear, who once frightened the bourgeoisie
with their threatening songs about striving for peace and disarmament and
universal brotherhood and who protested against social ills.

  Genuine Australian music is the music of the Aborigines.  They have been
unable, however, to exploit their native culture to tap the heartstrings of
the newcomers.  Aborigine young people have been forced to speak the language
of music.  The first Aborigine rock groups appeared in the early '80s.  The
group No Fixed Address became the most well known of its type, its music is
based on the rhythms of Aborigine folklore.
  Since these young men are not following the lead of American trends, show
business is not giving them any financial support.  Often they simply perform
in bars on an agreement with the owners.  But in many Australian cities large
and small this group's performances invariably enjoy success and they've even
been able to put out a modest album called With My Own Eyes.  Their lot is
difficult, but they have no intention of bowing their heads.

   -- A. Ivkin, staff correspondent, Sydney
      Pravda, July 17, 1987