By Wilma Acosta
Rage is an iconic Australian TV show that launched the careers of many Australian artists and brought attention to excellent international acts.
Rebecca Martin, ex-music programmer/producer of rage from 1999-2008, believes the show was an important avenue for allowing Australians to access new music.
“The idea was to have rage as a soundtrack to your parties, your events … sometimes you need to be told what is good music,” said Martin.
In the years that Martin worked for rage (from 1999-2008), the show would be watched by half a million punters every weekend.
Before the introduction of AI into music platforms and streaming, rage was an incredibly influential music program and a key avenue for Australians to hear about new music.
“You needed to keep an open mind,” she said. “I would research, I would always discuss with the DJs at Triple J and liaise with the record companies. It’s not about playing what you like.”
The process of curating music for the show was time consuming, details like how songs segue into each other are important factors to ensure an enjoyable audience experience. Fridays would be a dedicated day to playing new releases.
“Essentially for Australian artists who submitted their music to rage, if what they produced was musically and technically sound and its content didn’t violate any of our screen guides, there was a good chance it would get played on rage.”
Although the show continues to be played, music platforms like Spotify or Apple Music have taken over the music scene. She said that the algorithmic models that these companies use “disadvantage new music and local artists”.
The graph above shows the incredible profits that streaming platforms make; revenue came to $26.6 billion last year and is steadily increasing.
Australians alone spent $467 million on their paid subscription services but, surprisingly, profits made by the streaming companies (Spotify and Apple Music) are not due to new music being released on their platforms.
In fact in 2020 Spotify introduced a Nostalgia Patent, which resulted in the algorithm being tweaked to estimate what songs the user would find nostalgic based on their own personal data and listening history.
So, it begs the question, how do we get back to promoting homegrown artists?
Martin said that a huge appeal of rage was how it showcased music that “many generations could enjoy whilst simultaneously integrating new music”.
“Rage was a musical education at its forefront.”
Martin remains hopeful, the resurgence of physical mediums like vinyl and CDs with younger generations shows a desire to get back to more tangible and “communal listening experiences”.
Featured image: rage, the longest-running music TV show in Australian history. Photo: ABC I-view
