This chapter explores the history and present of the singles charts, and the phenomenon of the number one single, in a specifically Australian context. The history of the Australian singles charts are explored, from their beginnings in Go-Set magazine in 1966, based on sales of physical product, to the present-day situation, where the ARIA singles charts are primarily based on listens on streaming services. The chapter goes on to discuss the ways in which these differing consumption methods over the years affects the composition of the charts. While the charts in Australia often reflect overseas success by international artists, the particular music industry ecosystem in Australia can affect the success of different music.Similarly, the number one singles by Australian artists from the last decade are discussed, suggesting that it is increasingly difficult to have Australian chart success without international success.

The essay first focusses on the role of music Sebald’s writings in general. It explores the influence of music on his critical and literary writings in terms of style and thematic considerations. The focus of the essay is on pop music, discussing the connections between music and key themes such as memory and trauma. Next, the essay analyses Sebald’s impact on pop music and popular culture. His books, especially The Rings of Saturn, inspired many musical artists working in Avantgarde contexts (e.g. The Caretaker, Mabe Fratti, Christoph Heemann) and influenced many pop musicians who often are writers, too (e.g. Nick Cave, Patti Smith, David Byrne, Dirk von Lowtzow). These connections leads to a closer consideration of the similarities between Sebald’s literary techniques and the format of the pop music album.

In a survey that begins by looking at the ways in which post-war Britain gradually escaped from the popular cultural domination of the USA to create a new musical empire of its own, this chapter explores the manner in which home-grown pop reflects upon and influences notions of national identity. While progressive and revolutionary through the creation of new musical styles that sought to change the cultural, social or political landscape, pop has sometimes revealed itself to be nostalgic and backward-looking. This has often resulted in the curation of an Anglocentric musical tradition celebrating national stereotypes, but this is a tradition that has more recently been contested by other sounds, other voices, writing themselves into the pop history of the UK to become an integral part of the equally evolving character of the nation.

Like most countries around the world, Wales saw a flowering of popular music in the 1960s. Following the ubiquitous contemporary Anglo-American model, the popular music that emerged in Wales during that decade signalled a number of cultural shifts, both musical and linguistic. This chapter surveys the roots and developments of Anglophone and Welsh-language popular musics from the 1960s into the twenty-first century, focusing on shared traditions, political engagement, the attitudes of the ‘official’ institutions of both Welsh- and English-language culture (including the eisteddfod, the chapel and the media), and the impact of Welsh devolution; and revealing Wales’s contributions to fifty years of global musical dialogue. It considers the careers of several Welsh stars who ‘crossed over’ into the Anglo-American mainstream, including Shirley Bassey and Tom Jones, and the rise of the bands of the so-called ‘Cool Cymru’ era - prominent among them Catatonia, Super Furry Animals, Manic Street Preachers and Stereophonics. These bands achieved a new level of sophistication and cultural importance for Welsh pop, the clearest signal of which was the release of Super Furry Animals’ internationally acclaimed album Mwng (2000), a collection of songs sung entirely in the Welsh language. Post-devolution Wales has offered a greatly enriched cultural environment and infrastructure for pop music that has ensured the mainstream success of a new generation of Welsh artists such as Gwenno.