Music of Australia

The music of Australia has an extensive history made of music societies. Indigenous Australian music forms a significant part of the unique heritage of a 40,000- to 60,000-year history which produced the iconic didgeridoo. Contemporary fusions of indigenous and Western styles are exemplified in the works of Yothu Yindi, No Fixed Address, Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu and Christine Anu, and mark distinctly Australian contributions to world music.

Australian music's early western history, was a collection of British colonies, Australian folk music and bush ballads, with songs such as "Waltzing Matilda" and The Wild Colonial Boy heavily influenced by Anglo-Celtic traditions, Indeed many bush ballads are based on the works of national poets Henry Lawson and Banjo Patterson.

Contemporary Australian music ranges across a broad spectrum with trends often concurrent with those of the US, the UK, and similar nations—notably in the Australian rock and Australian country music genres. Tastes have diversified along with post–World War II multicultural immigration to Australia, whilst classical music derives from European influences.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, the most recent and possibly only original genre of music to emerge from Australia outside of indigenous music came from Newcastle and Sydney as a genre known as Breakcore.[1]