5mmm's Compilation Album of Adelaide Bands 1980

The 5MMM Compilation Album of Adelaide Bands 1980 exemplifies creativity and innovation by community and grassroots cultural enterprises that had lasting effects on Australian popular music.

With an early form of crowd-funding, Adelaide's new Community Radio station 5MMM-FM raised capital for the recording. The album contained 14 tracks by South Australian independent bands and artists.

The production of the album challenged the domination of the established Australian recording industry, which posed obstacles for South Australian bands. To get a recording contract, bands and musicians from Adelaide (and Perth, Brisbane, Hobart and regional Australia), had to navigate the challenges of regional geography and cultural bias, and recording company hegemony. Consequently, the rationale for this compilation album was based on frustration with the recording industry, a punk DIY ethos, a newly emerged independent media, cultural nationalism, and, locally, the South Australian cultural heritage and focus on creative industries.

The album and the effects it produced were symptomatic of the new public awareness of the Australian independent music sector that in turn fed into live music attendance, and commercial local recording. The contribution of a grassroots commitment to Australian music has not been well documented and this account situates the discussion in the social, political, and cultural context in which it emerged.