100 Best Australian Albums


The 100 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. The book was published on 25 October 2010 by Hardie Grant Books. Sony Music has released a five CD compilation to support the book.
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." The compendium was updated in November 2017 with ten additional entries, The 110 Best Australian Albums.

Background

About the authors

Creswell wrote his first article on rock & roll for Nation Review in 1972. He subsequently wrote articles about all aspects of popular culture and music for RAM, Billboard, Roadrunner and other national and international magazines and newspapers. 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. He continued to edit Rolling Stone until September 1992. He was a founding editor of Juice Magazine.
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, 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. O'Donnell is also active in a number of industry bodies such as ARIA and PPCA.

Writing process

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.

Albums

The updated list follows. New albums, which were added in the November 2017 edition, are shown with a bracketed bold asterisk ':
  1. Midnight Oil – Diesel and Dust
  2. AC/DC – Back in Black
  3. Crowded House – Woodface
  4. Cold Chisel – Circus Animals
  5. The Triffids – Born Sandy Devotional
  6. The Easybeats – The Best of the Easybeats
  7. Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls – Gossip
  8. You Am I – Hi Fi Way
  9. Skyhooks – Living in the 70's
  10. The Avalanches – Since I Left You
  11. INXS – Kick
  12. The Go-Betweens – 16 Lovers Lane
  13. Radio Birdman – Radios Appear
  14. Daddy Cool – Daddy Who? Daddy Cool
  15. Richard Clapton – Goodbye Tiger
  16. Bee Gees – Best of Bee Gees
  17. The Birthday Party – Junkyard
  18. Hunters & Collectors – Human Frailty
  19. Sarah Blasko – As Day Follows Night
  20. The Saints – Stranded
  21. The Drones – Gala Mill
  22. Split Enz – True Colours
  23. Midnight Oil – 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
  24. Slim Dusty – The Very Best of Slim Dusty
  25. Silverchair – Neon Ballroom
  26. Courtney Barnett – Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit '
  27. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – The Boatman's Call
  28. Regurgitator – Unit
  29. Hoodoo Gurus – Stoneage Romeos
  30. Empire of the Sun – Walking on a Dream
  31. Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu – Gurrumul
  32. Tame Impala – Lonerism '
  33. Kasey Chambers – Barricades & Brickwalls
  34. Johnny O'Keefe – The Wild One
  35. The Church – Starfish
  36. The Reels – Quasimodo's Dream
  37. The Masters Apprentices – Master's Apprentices
  38. Savage Garden – Savage Garden
  39. Sunnyboys – Sunnyboys
  40. Kev Carmody and Various Artists – Cannot Buy My Soul
  41. Something For Kate – Echolalia
  42. Stephen Cummings – Lovetown
  43. A.B. Original – Reclaim Australia '
  44. The Saints – Prehistoric Sounds
  45. Australian Crawl – The Boys Light Up
  46. Powderfinger – Odyssey Number Five
  47. Mental As Anything – Cats & Dogs
  48. Eddy Current Suppression Ring – Rush to Relax
  49. Models – The Pleasure of Your Company
  50. Augie March – Moo, You Bloody Choir
  51. The Missing Links – The Missing Links
  52. Ed Kuepper – Honey Steel's Gold
  53. AC/DC – Highway to Hell
  54. The Sports – Don't Throw Stones
  55. The Seekers – Greatest Hits
  56. Cold Chisel – East
  57. Big Scary – Animal '
  58. Underground Lovers – Leaves Me Blind
  59. You Am I – Hourly, Daily
  60. INXS – The Swing
  61. The Living End – The Living End
  62. Jimmy Barnes – For the Working Class Man
  63. Russell Morris – Wings of an Eagle and Other Great Hits
  64. Hoodoo Gurus – Mars Needs Guitars!
  65. The Presets – Apocalypso
  66. The Dingoes – The Dingoes
  67. The Cruel Sea – The Honeymoon Is Over
  68. Flume – Skin '
  69. The Angels – Face to Face
  70. The Hummingbirds – LoveBUZZ
  71. Paul Kelly & the Stormwater Boys – Foggy Highway
  72. Chain – Toward the Blues
  73. Dragon – O Zambezi
  74. Adalita – Adalita '
  75. Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs – Aztecs Live at Sunbury
  76. The Scientists – Blood Red River
  77. Crowded House – Temple of Low Men
  78. Died Pretty – Doughboy Hollow
  79. Axiom – Fool's Gold
  80. Bob Evans – Suburban Songbook
  81. Dirty Three – Ocean Songs
  82. Renée Geyer – Ready to Deal
  83. Royal Headache – High '
  84. The Church – The Blurred Crusade
  85. The Vines – Highly Evolved
  86. John Farnham – Whispering Jack
  87. The Loved Ones – Magic Box
  88. The Sleepy Jackson – Lovers
  89. The Panics – Rain on the Humming Wire '
  90. Bliss N Eso – Flying Colours
  91. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Tender Prey
  92. Tex, Don and Charlie – Sad But True
  93. Flowers – Icehouse
  94. The Painted Ladies – The Painted Ladies Play Selections from the Loner '
  95. Missy Higgins – The Sound of White
  96. The Go-Betweens – Before Hollywood
  97. Normie Rowe – Ain't Necessarily So
  98. Jet – Get Born
  99. The Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band – Smoke Dreams
  100. Sia – We Are Born
  101. Ben Lee – Awake is the New Sleep
  102. Rose Tattoo – Rose Tattoo
  103. I'm Talking – Bear Witness
  104. X – X-Aspirations
  105. Beaches – Beaches
  106. Baby Animals – Baby Animals
  107. Bernard Fanning – Tea & Sympathy
  108. Kylie Minogue – Fever
  109. Men at Work – Business As Usual
  110. G. Wayne Thomas, Terry Hannagan, Tamam Shud, Brian Cadd, John J. Francis, Peter Howe – Morning of the Earth''