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What We Collect: Vinyl

The NFSA's Vinyl Collection

Vinyl History

The first commercially available recorded sound in Australia was released in the 1890s on cylindrical rolls made of wax or cellulose nitrate. By the 1910s, these cylinders were overtaken in popularity by flat discs largely made of shellac. Shellac discs were originally manufactured to play at various speeds before 78rpm (revolutions per minute) became the standard. The advent of the 78 heralded the beginning of the mass commercialisation of music around the world.

By the late 1940s another disc format entered the market in the US. Made from polyvinyl chloride, the vinyl disc provided better sound quality, longer playing time and greater durability.

Australia adopted this new format a little later, but by 1954, CBS Records in Sydney had opened the first vinyl pressing plant in Australia.

From the late 1950s, vinyl became the dominant record format, quickly eclipsing the old 78s. This was especially true among younger audiences, where the introduction of vinyl coincided with the emergence of a youth culture centred around new music forms ushered in by the rock'n'roll revolution.

From the early 1960s through to the mid-1990s and the advent of the compact disc (CD), vinyl was by far the most popular way to buy and enjoy music.

NFSA Vinyl collection

The NFSA has an extensive collection of Australian recordings from the vinyl era. The collection encompasses all forms of music, spoken word, poetry, environmental sounds and comedy. It comprises over 90,000 discs and is growing constantly.

Sound Collection Guide:

Download guide: The First Wave: Australian rock and pop recordings (1955–1963)

Vinyl Revival

By the end of the 1990s, vinyl production and sales had all but disappeared. The CD, and later digital devices, had driven vinyl to the edge of extinction. But then a curious thing happened – 2007 saw the first upturn in vinyl sales since the late 1980s. Since then, vinyl sales have steadily increased, now far outstripping those of its old nemesis, the CD. With this upsurge in sales has come a renewed interest in historic back catalogues of the music produced in the vinyl era. Whether it’s fresh pressings of new music or old copies of past favourites, vinyl has become a central part of how music is enjoyed today.

Ken Grose

We are delighted by and grateful for Ken Grose's wonderful work on this important catalogue of Australian popular music from the vinyl era.

This is a fantastic resource for all those passionate about vinyl and the music that shaped us from the 1950s on.

Australian Popular Music Catalogue – Vinyl Records

By Ken Grose

As an avid collector of Australian popular music on vinyl for 40 years, I felt it was time for a comprehensive catalogue documenting all releases by Australian artists to be made available to the record-collecting public. In the past, there has been nothing that addresses the entirety of Aussie music on vinyl. So, after four painstaking years of research, I have compiled what I believe to be the first reference of its kind based purely on Australian artists on vinyl records.

Personally, my early experiences with collecting records started as a young teenager growing up listening to the Beatles and their influence on Australian bands of the day. From Billy Thorpe, Ray Brown and the Easybeats to the Purple Hearts, the Allusions and Mike Furber & the Bowery Boys, all were probably influenced by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. I remember saving up my pocket money to buy 45s at $1.00 each or $5.75 for an album if I could afford it. My first 45 was 'Hold Me' by PJ Proby, and my first LP was the Beatles' Please Please Me. Since those early days, I have been a serious collector of vinyl, and I currently have an extensive collection of 40,000 singles and 6,000 albums.

I compiled the catalogue using many and varied sources of information. Various original record company catalogues and internet sites such as Discogs, 45cat and Popsike aided my research, as did the Australian Record Labels catalogue (Michael De Looper), Milesago, Global Dog and various other sites. I also used Australian Top 40 charts and consulted magazines, reference books and newspapers of the day. I owe a great deal of thanks to the NFSA, who kindly offered access to their amazing database and archives.

The catalogue is really a listing of Australian artists who recorded on vinyl from around the early 1950s through to the early 2000s. There are some listings for artists who started their career recording on 78rpm shellac in the 1940s, offering a complete discography for those artists, including Slim Dusty, Reg Lindsay, Frank Ifield, Tex Morton and others.

The catalogue includes the following styles and genres of music:

Rock	Pop
Male vocal	Female vocal
Country and Western	Psychedlic, Surf and Garage rock
Folk	R&B
Indie	Australian punk
Australian blues	Heavy/Hard Rock
Pop Instrumental	Easy listening