Listen to the latest NFSA Sounds of Australia

Every summer, Australia's National Film and Sound Archive adds recordings to its Sounds of Australia collection. Songs, speeches, recordings, events that say something about our big brown land and what it's like to get about on it.

The songs added this year are era-defining classics. From 1963, 14 year old Little Pattie's He's My Blonde Headed Stompie Wompie Real Gone Surfer Boy, a joyful celebration of surf and sounds.

There's The Triffids, and perhaps the most Australian song ever made, the hymn to love, loss and long drives that is Wide Open Road.

Somebody That I Used To Know, from the curious hybrid pop star Gotye also got a listing.

As did Renee Geyer, Australia's reigning queen of soul and one of its down under pioneers, for her first top 40 hit, Heading In The Right Direction, from 1975.

Listen to the Meat Loaf story

The 1977 overnight success of Marvin Lee Aday was at least a decade in the making. By the time he exploded out of our TV sets as Meat Loaf, he had been in the music business since the mid 60s, and had considerable theatre experience under his belt, in shows like Rocky Horror and Hair.

There was a huge dose of theatre in Meat Loaf's music. Was he a singer who acts, or an actor who sings? The man himself leaned to the latter, but probably believed it impossible to distinguish one role from the other. He had a bones-deep conviction about the righteous nature of rock and roll as an answer to teenage yearning, and to the haunting dreams that have as their central theme the notion that there must be more than this.

Meat Loaf (don't call him Meatloaf!) found the perfect partner in writer/producer Jim Steinman. Together, they made Bat Out Of Hell, which broke first in Australia. Its early success here convinced his reluctant record company to back the Bat, producing a global hit that became one of the best-selling records ever.

Meat Loaf has died - he was 74. If Bat Out Of Hell was his only achievement, he would have deserved a lofty place in the great rock and roll museum of feats and fame. Meat Loaf did so much more.

Listen to the Ronnie Spector story

The Ronettes were the high point of the early 60s "girl group" phenomenon. Their delicious harmonies were the sound of the times, and the Ronettes had many hits like Be My Baby, Walking In The Rain and Baby I Love You.

Lead singer Ronnie Spector was a music trail-blazer with a gift for the yearning vocals so popular with teen audiences at the time. Her singing style has been an enormous influence on music ever since. And the story of how she survived the cruelty dealt her by her husband, the convicted murderer Phil Spector, is an extraordinary tale of courage and resilience.
Ronnie Spector has died - she was 78. She was one of the great singers of the modern era, and a key participant in one of pop music's finest moments.