100 Best Australian Albums

2010 book by John O'Donnell

100 Best Australian Albums

Cover

Author| John O'Donnell, Toby Creswell, Craig Mathieson
Language| English
Subject| Australian music, rock, pop, discography
Publisher| Hardie Grant Books

Publication date

| 25 October 2010
Publication place| Australia
Media type| print (hardback)
Pages| 256
ISBN| 978-1-74066-955-9
OCLC| 646229830

The 100 Best Australian Albums (a.k.a. One Hundred Best Australian Albums) is a compendium of rock and pop albums of the past 50 years as compiled by music journalists Toby Creswell, Craig Mathieson and John O'Donnell.[1] The book was published on 25 October 2010 by Hardie Grant Books (Prahran, Victoria).[2] Sony Music has released a five CD compilation to support the book.[1]

According to O'Donnell, "It wouldn't be a good list if it didn't polarise people and we hope that this list will. We also hope that it will get people sitting around comparing their favourites and discovering or re-discovering these great albums and others."[3] The compendium was updated in November 2017 with ten additional entries, The 110 Best Australian Albums.[4][5]

## Background

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### About the authors

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Main articles: Toby Creswell, Craig Mathieson, and John O'Donnell (music journalist)

Creswell wrote his first article on rock & roll for Nation Review in 1972.[6] He subsequently wrote articles about all aspects of popular culture and music for RAM (Rock Australia Magazine), Billboard, Roadrunner and other national and international magazines and newspapers.[7] He has worked for MTV and a variety of television programs as a writer and presenter. In 1985 he became editor of the Australian edition of Rolling Stone and two years later was in a partnership which took over the franchise.[7][8] He continued to edit Rolling Stone until September 1992.[8] He was a founding editor of Juice Magazine.[9][10]

Mathieson is also a journalist, known for his work with Rolling Stone, Juice Magazine, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, as well as for his book Hi Fi Days (1996), a biography of three leading Australian bands, Silverchair, Spiderbait and You Am I.

O'Donnell started out as a freelance writer, worked as Music Editor at Rolling Stone, before leaving to co-found and edit Juice Magazine. In 1994, O'Donnell created the Murmur label for Sony Music Australia and went on to sign successful artists, including Silverchair, Ammonia, Jebediah, and Something for Kate. He later worked for Sony at the corporate level before leaving for EMI Australia in 2002. O'Donnell was the CEO of EMI in the Oceania region from 2002 until September 2008.[11] O'Donnell is also active in a number of industry bodies such as ARIA and PPCA.

### Writing process

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In July 2009, O'Donnell and some of his friends discussed their selections for the best Australian albums. He decided a book on the topic was required and contacted fellow journalists, Creswell and Mathieson, to pitch the idea to publishers with Hardie Grant being chosen. Over the latter part of 2009, the trio revisited numerous albums, O'Donnell estimates he listened to 450–500. After four months of trimming their lists, the authors divided up the descriptions of each entry according to personal experiences with Mathieson focusing on post-1980s, Creswell on 1960s and 1970s, and O'Donnell providing the overview.[1]

## See also

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* Music of Australia § Popular music
* Australian rock

## References

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* O'Donnell, John; Creswell, Toby; Mathieson, Craig (2010). 100 Best Australian Albums. Prahran, Vic: Hardie Grant Books. ISBN 978-1-74066-955-9.[12]

1. ^ a b c Brandle, Lars (3 November 2010). "The 100 Best Australian Albums". Music Industry. The Music Network. Retrieved 4 November 2010.
2. ^ "The 100 Best Australian Albums, John O'Donnell, 9781740669559". Booktopia Pty Ltd. Retrieved 4 November 2010.
3. ^ "The 100 Best Australian Albums by John O'Donnell". Hardie Grant Publishing. Retrieved 20 April 2021.
4. ^ "110 Best Australian Albums by Toby Creswell". Hardie Grant Books. Retrieved 30 July 2018.
5. ^ O'Donnell, John; Creswell, Toby; Mathieson, Craig (1 November 2017), The 110 Best Australian Albums, Hardie Grant Books, ISBN 978-1-74379-361-9
6. ^ Creswell, Toby (1999). The Real Thing: Adventures in Australian Rock & Roll, 1957-now. Milsons Point, NSW: Random House. ISBN 978-0-09-183547-7.
7. ^ a b "Toby Creswell". Rock's Backpages. Backpages Limited. Retrieved 19 March 2009.
8. ^ a b Boots, Tim (23 April 2007). "Rolling Stone still rocking 35 years on". The Sydney Morning Herald. Fairfax Media. Retrieved 19 March 2009.
9. ^ Cauchi, Stephen (4 November 2007). "Right, said Led: old fogeys of rock in classic reunion mode". The Age. Fairfax Media. Retrieved 24 April 2008.
10. ^ Carney, Shaun (5 November 2005). "Shuffling through a century of song". The Age. Fairfax Media. Retrieved 24 April 2008.
11. ^ Eliezer, Christie (28 July 2008). "O'Donnell Splits EMI Australia, Poston Rises". Billboard. Retrieved 23 January 2010.
12. ^ "100 Best Australian Albums". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 2 November 2010.

*[OCLC]: Online Computer Library Center number