The Wiggles produce hugely successful CDs, DVDs and interactive entertainment for pre-school children. They are Top of the Tots, as their 2004 album of the same name proclaims. However, the artists have been largely overlooked by the popular music and media academies. I argue that this omission can be attributed to problems of categorisation, particularly existing frameworks in television studies that limit how we gauge ‘quality entertainment’ and its audience; and in popular music and sound studies traditions that are yet to formally engage with listeners who are of pre-school age. The Wiggles are artists whose target audience historically has been overlooked by sophisticated, diverse and evolving academic traditions. As a result, their pioneering cross-media and international successes have largely been ignored. In this article, I seek to explore The Wiggles in terms that go beyond the narrow parameters of ‘children's entertainment’, offering more ‘grown-up’ ways to understand the group's success.
Rage is a unique music programme in the Australian music media, having recently celebrated 20 years on air. This article will explore Rage's success in context of its importance as a television programme and musical outlet, examining the show's continued development in detail.
With the 2020 global pandemic came the urgent need to communicate effective public health advice. The World Health Organization and other governing organizations turned to music to prompt citizens, as did artists themselves to reach their audiences. This article explores COVID-19 explainer/entertainer videos created and circulated since the March pandemic declaration, including children's entertainers The Wiggles, Sesame Street, and Pinkfong (Baby Shark), as well as adaptations of classics by Gloria Gaynor, Neil Diamond, and Dolly Parton. The musical mnemonics serve to engage and entertain groups of people locked down together, mixing existing audience connotations with the urgent public health advice.
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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