Community radio has always been a space for people to share and discover new Australian music and artists. The launch of the Community Radio Airplay Charts builds on that with an easy to use resource for broadcasters, artists, record labels and other music businesses to work together to champion local talent. In the last week 151 releases uploaded to amrap.org.au were played a total of 4,237 times on community radio.
The charts cover all areas and genres. There is a top 20 National Airplay Chart as well as metro and regional versions. The National and Metro No 1 this week is Back on the Road by Icecream Hands. The Melbourne band has been around since 1992 and I’ve attached it below as it’s magnificent and something I’ve only discovered because of this chart.
Then there are top tens in all the genres below. Artists, when they submit their songs can choose more than one genre.
CBAA Music Director Andrew Khedoori and his small team have worked and are still working to make these charts available each week, but more important is the artists submitting their music in the first place.
He said:
“One of the challenges for community radio moving forward is to engage younger people who have grown up in the digital era. Their music consumption is quite different to the way we knew it in the past, and streaming platforms are a given. Via what we’re doing here, we know that there are a lot of younger artists who are starting out, and they know exactly how to get their track onto a streaming platform like Bandcamp and YouTube.
The challenge for us is creating that same awareness around community radio. Recent reports that APRA have provided show that Australian music consumption is very low. It’s at 8.4%. A big part of that is the streaming platforms are not necessarily interested in foregrounding Australian music.
But community radio is. More specifically, community radio really does support new and emerging Australian music. It’s one of the first points along that artist pathway to creating awareness and audience development for what they do. And it also gives them confidence to keep going because they’ve actually created an audience through the sector by putting their music on the community radio network.
Our responsibility is to keep reminding artists about community radio, keep getting that message across, because it’s going to be a totally different thing for a lot of younger people who don’t necessarily engage with it. We have to also get more young people making community radio that reflects their interests as well. The resilience and reinvigoration of the sector is really important. And both those things are really kind of two sides of the same coin when it comes to Australian music, getting that music out there and watching things grow even further. We offer portals for the creativity of young people to be heard.”
One exponent of this, and No 1 on the Community Radio Hip Hop / R&B Airplay Charts is Bumpy. An award winning Noongar woman and Naarm (Melbourne) based artist Bumpy is using her soul filled voice as a tool to continue her important language revitalisation work. She is also a presenter at Triple R 102.7.
Then there’s Abby Wallace (listen below). A Tasmanian, she was invited to perform at the recent CBAA conference held in Hobart after Andrew discovered her music via Amrap. She ended up staying and mingling, blown away by the sector and the support.
Andrew said:
“I think that just speaks to the to the fantastic opportunity that the entirety of the sector represents. What we always say to Australian artists is that whatever kind of music you make, there is going to be somewhere across the country that is going to be able to take on your music and provide you with an airplay opportunity. It’s about finding your people. It can be daunting at first because there’s so many stations, but if you look at those charts, you can see that there’s so much different music being played. You’ve just got to use Amrap to find your people and get that music to those people.”
You can sign up for a free account and upload your music here. It doesn’t matter if you’re signed or unsigned and signed, independent or with a major record label. You can preview each track with a built-in play button, and community stations can assess and download the songs to their libraries.
A weekly, all-genre ranking of the 20 most-played Australian tracks is updated and published every Friday AT 10.00 am AEST.
Community radio plays a vital role in the discovery and promotion of Australian music, often highlighting artists before they achieve mainstream success and amrap.org.au airplay tracking is made possible with support from the Community Broadcasting Foundation and APRA AMCOS.