Who is Australia's best ever singer/songwriter?

[Gough]

Robert Forster and Greg Macainsh deserve a mention.

 

[IAMDASH]

SPJ - All The Way!

 

[The old campaigner]

John Butler needs to be considered imho!

 

[TheEscapeClub]

I loved Nick Cave in The Birthday Party but solo he comes across (to me) as the most pretentious w*nker imaginable. As soon as someone calls themselves an 'artist' is almost always the time to stop listening.

Surely that title is safely held by Morrissey of The Smiths?

 

[TheEscapeClub]

Shorrock, Goble and Birtles - The Little River Band.

 

[catscratchfever]

Surely that title is safely held by Morrissey of The Smiths?

Yeah, call it a tie.

 

[rank and file]

I loved Nick Cave in The Birthday Party but solo he comes across (to me) as the most pretentious w*nker imaginable. As soon as someone calls themselves an 'artist' is almost always the time to stop listening.

I wish all these 'artists' would define what they mean by 'art'. Most of them wouldn't be able to do so clearly.

Nick Cave is a national living treasure and an artist.
True renaissance man.
Plays guitar,piano,writes books,stars in movies.
Saving up for the jumper,not sure if I should get the black one or white one.

 

[catscratchfever]

Nick Cave is a national living treasure and an artist.
True renaissance man.
Plays guitar,piano,writes books,stars in movies.
Saving up for the jumper,not sure if I should get the black one or white one.
View attachment 1992836

I saw him twice with The Birthday Party, they were forkin incredible.

Rowland S. Howard was an amazing guitarist and Tracy Pew was… Tracy Pew. Irreplaceable. RIP.

 

[Rusty Brookes]

Joel Silbersher

 

[mr bagcroft]

Daniel Johns, and by a fair old margin.

 

[Plugger35]

I thought this was more solo singer/songwriters but if it's bands then Steve Kilbey gets my vote.

He wrote and sang one of the greatest songs of all time.




Not to mention all the other great Church songs he's written and sung, there's too many to mention.

 

[The Dice Man]

Gotta be Paul Kelly as far as lyricists go.

Musicianship maybe not.

 

[Mesc]

Bon Scott

By a mile !

 

[Fabab]

Bon Scott.

 

[glitterball]

 

[Professor Knowall]

I’ve only just caught this thread. As long as one accepts that living in Australia in the formative years aged from 12 to 2o, during which he started his stellar professional singing and songwriting career, qualifies him as being Australian, then Barry Gibb has to easily take the title of our greatest singer-songwriter - in commercial terms it ain’t close.

The Guinness World Records lists him as the second most successful songwriter in history, behind McCartney.

 

[CliffMcTainshaw]

I loved Nick Cave in The Birthday Party but solo he comes across (to me) as the most pretentious w*nker imaginable. As soon as someone calls themselves an 'artist' is almost always the time to stop listening.

I wish all these 'artists' would define what they mean by 'art'. Most of them wouldn't be able to do so clearly.

Spot On.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08...th-and-finding-new-meaning-in-life-/103771980

 

[Professor Knowall]

I’ve noted the Nick Cave "controversy" in this thread. I’ve long had a fascination with Cave. He was born and spent his early childhood in the small Wimmera town of Warracknabeal, close to where I was born and raised. He then moved to Wangaratta, where I also have relatives and know the place fairly well. My attitude to him has tended to bend and sway between antipathy and admiration at different points in time, as his music evolved and matured along with him. As so, I would have agreed with all of the following posts -

I loved Nick Cave in The Birthday Party but solo he comes across (to me) as the most pretentious w*nker imaginable. As soon as someone calls themselves an 'artist' is almost always the time to stop listening.

I wish all these 'artists' would define what they mean by 'art'. Most of them wouldn't be able to do so clearly.

Nick Cave is a national living treasure and an artist.
True renaissance man.
Plays guitar, piano, writes books, stars in movies.

… Sorry, but I can't agree with you about Nick Cave, he doesn't have a good singing voice, his lyrics are dark and he never seems to have a happy or optimistic view of the world. Really depressing listening...

But is it somehow really possible for all of these contradictory statements to be largely true? I believe so, for as this very timely (for this article) ABC article explains, there have been many changes over the years in Nick Cave, who once bucked and sought to outrage the old suit-wearing conservative church going establishment - and now, when few go to church in this secular age, or wear suits, the now family oriented Nick wears well pressed suits and goes to church on Sunday -

"For most of his life, admits Nick Cave, Australia's baritone bard of the dark and deep "I was in awe of my own genius" and everything else existed on the periphery. Then his 15-year-old son, Arthur, died and that way of living "collapsed completely. I just saw the folly of that ... disgraceful sort of self-indulgence. ... I'm a father and I'm a husband and a grandfather and a kind of person of the world. These things are much more important to me than the concept of being an artist"...

… He's been many things. The post-punk, emaciated frontman of The Birthday Party, thrilling and terrifying audiences with wild, often violent, gigs amid blood-curdling calls to "release the bats". .., A heroin addict in a lime-green suit, busted by New York police ...

... A big part of that meaning has come through Cave's growing commitment to Christianity, a direction which alienated those fans who prefer a more godless idol. But, says Cave, he and the Bad Seeds have never been afraid to lose fans. … dressed, as usual nowadays, in a well-pressed suit.

The shrieking, scrawny servant of Beelzebub who landed in London in 1980 is now the besuited grandfather with a belief in the divine and a penchant for swimming in cold water. In his younger days, says Cave, his was an adversarial relationship with fans. "You went to war with the crowd in some kind of way," he says. Now, he sees music's role as creating a transcendent experience, a sharing of love between him and the audience. …" -

The moment that ended Nick Cave's 'disgraceful self-indulgence'

For most of his life, rock star Nick Cave says he was "in awe of his own genius". Cataclysmic life events fundamentally "re-arranged" him.

www.abc.net.au

 

[rank and file]

I’ve noted the Nick Cave « controversy » in this thread. I’ve long had a fascination with Cave. He was born and spent his early childhood in the small Wimmera town of Warracknabeal, close to where I was born and raised. He then moved to Wangaratta, where I also have relatives and know the place fairly well. My attitude to him has tended to bend and sway between antipathy and admiration at different points in time, as his music evolved and matured along with him. As so, I would have agreed with all of the following posts -





But is it somehow really possible for all of these contradictory statements to be largely true? I believe so, for as this very timely (for this article) ABC article explains, there have been many changes over the years in Nick Cave, who once bucked and sought to outrage the old suit-wearing conservative church going establishment - and now, when few go to church in this secular age, or wear suits, the now family oriented Nick wears well pressed suits and goes to church on Sunday -

"For most of his life, admits Nick Cave, Australia's baritone bard of the dark and deep "I was in awe of my own genius" and everything else existed on the periphery. Then his 15-year-old son, Arthur, died and that way of living "collapsed completely. I just saw the folly of that ... disgraceful sort of self-indulgence. ... I'm a father and I'm a husband and a grandfather and a kind of person of the world. These things are much more important to me than the concept of being an artist"...

… He's been many things. The post-punk, emaciated frontman of The Birthday Party, thrilling and terrifying audiences with wild, often violent, gigs amid blood-curdling calls to "release the bats". .., A heroin addict in a lime-green suit, busted by New York police ...

... A big part of that meaning has come through Cave's growing commitment to Christianity, a direction which alienated those fans who prefer a more godless idol. But, says Cave, he and the Bad Seeds have never been afraid to lose fans. … dressed, as usual nowadays, in a well-pressed suit.

The shrieking, scrawny servant of Beelzebub who landed in London in 1980 is now the besuited grandfather with a belief in the divine and a penchant for swimming in cold water. In his younger days, says Cave, his was an adversarial relationship with fans. "You went to war with the crowd in some kind of way," he says. Now, he sees music's role as creating a transcendent experience, a sharing of love between him and the audience. …" -

The moment that ended Nick Cave's 'disgraceful self-indulgence'

For most of his life, rock star Nick Cave says he was "in awe of his own genius". Cataclysmic life events fundamentally "re-arranged" him.

www.abc.net.au

Nick Cave a big country fan.
His cover of 'Wanted Man' was approved by Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash.

 

[bok_party]

Surprised no one has mentioned Paul Dempsey.

 

[brutus76]

Solo person - Paul Kelly

Collective - The Bee Gees and Birtles, Shorrock & Goble (the faux band you cannot name)

 

[skipper kelly]

Gotta be Paul Kelly as far as lyricists go.

Musicianship maybe not.

Very good player as well. Hard as a cats head.

 

[JackOutback]

Surprised no one has mentioned Paul Dempsey.

Great shout, enjoying his album with Bernard Fanning.

 

[Bostonian]

Bon Scott

He was in collab with Angus and Malcolm. They kept writing hits after he was gone.

 

[Bostonian]

Andrew Farriss has to be up there.

INXS has a large catalogue of world wide famous songs and he was a huge part in writing them.