Who is Australia's best ever singer/songwriter?

[CURVE]

Mike Chapman (born in Queensland)needs more credit for all the amazing 3-4 minute pop songs he wrote/co-wrote (50 top 10’s in total)
Simply the best
Love is a battlefield
Mickey
Livin next door to Alice
Ballroom blitz
Devil gate drive, can the can
He took Blondie to new levels producing Parallel Lines, he produced My Sharona

‘Simply The Best: The Mike Chapman Story’ — Documentary About Prolific Songwriter And Producer To Be Exec Produced By Debbie Harry & Chris Stein From Blondie

‘Simply The Best: The Mike Chapman Story'; Documentary About Songwriter And Producer To Be Exec Produced By Debbie Harry & Chris Stein From Blondie

deadline.com

Can't sing for shit though.

On the recent Blondie release "Against The Odds" there is a demo of him singing "Hanging On The telephone", and he may be the only person in the universe with a worse voice than mine.

 

[Shai]

Having a chat with my mate about this the other day - Nick Cave is no doubt an outstanding lyricist, but I reckon 95%+ of the public couldn't name a single song of his and his most well known song has 7 million spotify hits. Compared to the likes of Sia who has over a billion hits on spotify for multiple songs riddiled with catchy hooks, and has penned many songs for other artists that people don't even know she wrote.

So in your opinion who is Australia's best ever singer/songwriter? Does it come down to spotify hits, catchy hooks or does it come down to the quality of lyrics and musicianship, or perhaps the musican's scope of work? Cave has produced film scores for example...

Yeah, music for films is an entirely different matter. Kudos to Nick but I don't listen to anything he's been involved in, for example The Bad Seeds.

For me it would be the late 70's/early 80's writers but the range goes much further back for 'hidden gems'.