'There's No Aphrodisiac Like Newtown': The Evolving Connection to Place in the Music of the Whitlams
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Abstract
The Whitlams live in Newtown, Australia” is a byline that has appeared on each of the Sydney band’s albums since their beginnings in 1992. During this time the band has progressed from being on a small, independent label with a local audience to achieving national coverage and recognition, culminating with 8 ARIA award nominations in 1998. Of these they won three for Best Group, Song of the Year and Best Independent Release. Following this The Whitlams were signed to Warner Music (as it incorporated Festival Music), and have continued to make albums that still use inner city Sydney as a focus, but are pitched at a less localised audience. The Whitlams have used Sydney as a setting for major local events during this time, (the Sydney Olympics, State Government policies), but also just as a setting to express more personal issues (songs about relationships, aging). This paper will compare The Whitlams’ early releases to the music made after the band gained national attention, looking at how and why Sydney has remained a central theme, but has been expressed in different terms.
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Bowen, N. (2000) "Maintaining the Rage", The City Hub, 10/08/00, p9.
Carroll, J. & Connell, J.(2000) "'You Gotta Love This City': The Whitlams and Inner Sydney", Australian Geographer, (3)n, 141-54. https://doi.org/10.1080/713612243
Cashmere, P. (2007) "Tim Freedman Laughs Off The Chaser", Undercover Music, published 8/10/07, accessed via
Clelland, R. (1999) "Freed of Constraints?" in Drum Media, 26/10/99, 23.
Clelland, R. (2001) 'There is such a thing as a Free(dman) lunch)', Drum Media, 8/5/01, 37.
Cohen, S. (1999) 'Scenes' in Horner, B and Swiss, T (eds) Key Terms in Popular Music and Culture, Blackwell Publishers, Massachusetts, 239-250.
Connell, J. and Gibson, C. (2003) Sound Tracks: Popular Music, Identity and Place, Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203448397
Faris, M. (2004) "'That Chicago Sound': Playing with (Local) Identity in Underground Rock", Popular Music and Society, (27) 4, 429-454. https://doi.org/10.1080/0300776042000264658
Fenster, M. (2002) "Consumers' guides: the political economy of the music press and the democracy of critical discourse" in Jones S (ed) Pop Music and The Press, Temple University Press, New York, 81-92.
Freedman, T. (2006) Interview with author conducted by phone as part of media interviews, February 2006.
Frith, S. (1988) "Why Do Songs Have Words?" in Music For Pleasure: Essays in the Sociology of Pop, Polity Press, Oxford, 105-128.
Gibson, C. & Homan, S. (2004) "Urban Redevelopment, Live Music and Public Space", in International Journal of Cultural Policy, (10) 1, 67-84. https://doi.org/10.1080/1028663042000212337
Giuffre, L. (2002) "'With a gun totin' trigger happy tranny named kinky renee': Identity, Australianness and contemporary Popular music", paper presented at 9th Australia/New Zealand International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) Conference, 19-21 July, University of New England, Armidale.
Grimson, T. (1998) "Tim Freedman" in Rolling Stone: Rock and Roll Yearbook, 36.
Guinness, D. (2006) "41 and counting" in Sunday Life: The Sun-Herald Magazine, 19/3/06, 14-17.
Holmes, P. (1994) "Men and Women of Newtown", The Sydney Morning Herald, 4/3/94, 7.
Homan, S. (1999) "Displaced rhythms: Evicting Rock and Roll" in Bloustein G (ed) Musical Visions, selected proceedings from the 6th National Australia/New Zealand IASPM and the Inaugural Arnhem Land Performance Conference Wakefield: Kent Town, South Australia, 57-62.
Mathieson, C. (2000) The Sell-in: How the music business seduced alternative rock, Allen and Unwin, Sydney.
Moore, A. (2004) "Authenticity as Authentication" in Popular Music, (21):2, 209-23.
Smith, G. (2005) Singing Australian: A History of Folk and Country Music, Pluto Press, Melbourne.
Steggels, S. (1992) "Nothing ventured, nothing gained: Midnight Oil and the politics of rock" in Hayward P (ed) From Pop To Punk To Postmodernism: Popular music and Australian Culture from the 1960s to the 1990s, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 139- 148.
Stratton, J. (2007) "The Triffids: The Sense of Place", Popular Music and Society, (30):3, 377-99. https://doi.org/10.1080/03007760600835108
Turner,G. (1992) "Australian Popular Music and its Contexts" in Hayward P (ed), From Pop to Punk to Postmodernism: Popular music and Australian culture from the 1960s to the 1990s, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 11-24.
Zuel, B. (2002) "No holds bard" in The Sydney Morning Herald Weekend Edition (Metropolitan supplement), 1, 4.
Zuel, B. (2006) 'The Hot Seat: Tim Freedman Talks to Bernard Zuel' in The Sydney Morning Herald Weekend Edition (Spectrum supplement), 4-5.