Australian pop legend Tina Arena gave us two of our favourite ARIA Awards moments last month when she put on a powerhouse performance of her signature hit ‘Chains’ with The Veronicas and Jessica Mauboy and lambasted the Aussie radio industry.
After being inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame, Arena used her acceptance speech to implore the Australian radio industry to play more homegrown music and to stop disregarding female talent after they reach a certain age.
Arena pleaded with Australian radio to “continue to support Australian music and base your playlists on the quality of the song and not the age of the artist” adding, “Radio please don’t try and meet your Australian quotas because you have to, exceed them because you really want to.”
Meanwhile, Arena’s show-stopping performance of ‘Chains’ with Mauboy and The Veronicas sent the new rendition of the track into the Top 20 of the Australia singles charts. The tune was the highest selling new single on the charts this week.
As The Courier Mail notes, ‘Chains’ debuted at Number 14 on the ARIA singles Top 50, after peaking at Number 4 on iTunes in the days following the awards. Despite the impressive stats, it wasn’t played on a single radio station in the entire country.
As The Courier Mail‘s Kathy McCabe notes, it appears Arena’s plea has fallen on deaf ears. Whilst one would think that a high chart position would almost guarantee at least minor rotation on a 2DAY, a KIIS, or a Nova, the reality is starkly different.
One might argue that Arena simply doesn’t fit the aforementioned stations’ formats, but more contemporary acts like Mauboy and The Veronicas do. To put things in context, even Smooth.fm, which features Arena as an on-air personality, didn’t play ‘Chains’.
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Of course, it’s important to remember that Australian artists have fared far better on Australian commercial radio in 2015 than in previous years. This year saw considerable airplay given to the likes of Conrad Sewell, Vance Joy, Sia, Chet Faker, and more.
But despite almost 300,000 YouTube views and more than 16,000 Spotify plays since the ARIA Awards, ‘Chains’ goes unplayed on radio. Maybe Arena had a point about the ageism in the Australian commercial radio industry?
