30 YEARS OF CENTRAL STATION
RECORDS:
The History of Dance Music in Australia
To generations of young Australian music fans, the name
Central Station has always meant one thing: dance. Central Station Records
is an institution, from its retail stores across the country, its record
labels, its chart hits, right down to its iconic logo.
From the very outset, the story of Central Station Records
has been intertwined with the history of dance music in Australia. Central
Station was there at the start, a facilitator, a driving force in the
growth of the local dance and club culture.
This year, Central Station Records turns 30, a remarkable
and rare achievement for any dance music associated business anywhere
in the world, let alone all the way Down Under.
Dance music has undergone infinite change since the initial
funk and disco explosions of the '70s. From house to hip-hop, and all
the hundreds of genres in between, it has developed into the defining
sound of our age.
Central Station Records was there from the beginning.
In commemoration of its 30th anniversary, this is the story of Central
Station Records, the story of dance music in Australia.
THE EARLY YEARS: 1976-1990
Any Australian who's ever put the letters DJ in front
of their name has, at some point in their life, been intimately familiar
with their local Central Station Records store. Before dance music made
its cross-over into the mainstream, Central Station Records was the
place to get the latest beats on vinyl, no matter where in the world
they were being produced.
The various Central Station stores in capital cities around
Australia, as well as a store in Auckland, New Zealand, doubled as local
hubs for dance aficionados, workers in the field, along with all the
wanna-bes. Several of those experts working behind the counters at different
times in different stores went on to become some of the biggest players
in the Australian music industry, from local dance label bosses to many
of the country's top DJs.
If the story of Central Station Records mirrors the rise
of dance music in Australia, then the story of Central Station itself,
at least the first part of it, is very much the story of one man - Giuseppe
Palumbo. Jo, as everyone calls him, is Central Station's founder. For
many years, Jo ran Central Station Records as a virtual one-man operation.
Having emigrated from Italy to Australia in 1967, he was introduced
to the world of music retail when, in 1975, he opened a record store
in Melbourne.
The shops became general suppliers for Melbourne's burgeoning
DJ boom. Jo and Morgan started importing decks, mixers - anything a
bedroom banger needed to get started. They also began producing their
own Central Station merchandise: t-shirts, jackets, bags, caps, slip-mats.
And, of course, the shops offered the largest collection of 12-inch
singles imaginable.
Late in 1986, Central Station Records, the label, was
born. It was a tentative procedure, the label only releasing a handful
of records in its first few years. But it led to another fundamental
change in the Central Station business model. Within a year-and-a-half,
there were new Central Station Records stores in Adelaide, Sydney and
Brisbane. With Hip-Hop, House and Acid House music now quickly rising
out of the underground, demand for product from every corner of the
globe was overwhelming.
THE HOUSE YEARS: 1991+
By the start of the 1990s, it felt like everyone in the
world wanted to be a DJ. House and Hip-Hop were now fully fledged music
movements, with cross-over hits regularly topping the global mainstream
charts. It was an electronic music revolution, the rise of the superstar
DJ.
Jo and Morgan relocated themselves and the Central Station
headquarters to Sydney. For many years to follow, they ran the business
out of an office in a harbourside house. The house itself would become
legendary in the dance scene, famous for private parties often featuring
the world's most famous visiting DJs.
Jo and Morgan opened a second Sydney store right in the
middle of the city's main club strip, Oxford Street, and, in 1992, opened
a new store in Perth. With its huge gay community and its tradition
in massive dance parties, the Sydney stores in particular were doing
amazing sales.
By 1992, the company was again healthy enough to look
at manufacturing its own product. Nothing big this time, just the odd
12-inch. Central released a track called 'This Is It' by Ruth Campbell.
By chance, Dannii Minogue decided to cover the song almost immediately.
A national commercial television network picked it up as its summer
theme song. Suddenly it was a track in hot demand. Almost by fluke,
Central Station Records had a minor commercial hit on its hands.
Jo had a track lying around for ages. It had been an underground
hit in Holland and he'd picked up its Australian rights for only $500.
It was called 'Here's Johnny' by Hocus Pocus.
In 1994, with strong support from free-to-air TV music
shows such as Video Hits and Rage, 'Here's Johnny' became one of the
year's biggest hits in Australia, topping the mainstream singles chart
and staying at No. 1 for six weeks. Central and Shock's next release
was a dance remix of 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' by British singer
Nikki French. That got to number 2 on the mainstream charts, held out
of the top spot by 'Here's Johnny.'
Suddenly, Central Station Records, the label, was back,
much bigger than ever. A string of releases were scheduled. Central
became the first dance label in Australia to service commercial radio
stations with its releases, and in turn helped broaden the scope of
local pop radio. But its biggest releases were yet to come.
THE HARD YEARS: 1996 TO PRESENT
Moving into the second half of the 1990s, the musical
styles upon which Central Station Records were founded - dance music,
R&B, Hip-Hop, all forms of electronica - had now well and truly
crossed over into the mainstream. Off the back of the success of its
hit singles, Central Station Records, the label, went through a massive
expansion. Five sub-labels were created to deal with various genres:
Tinted (House), Bang On! (Trance/Hard House), Dinky (NRG & All Australian
artists), Central Cuts (Commercial Dance) and the Hardwax label (R&B/2-step).
Wild FM was a phenomenon unto itself. Run by a conglomerate
of young dance music fans, it was only intermittently on-air for a few
years while it vied for a permanent radio licence which it never got.
But it became an immediate favourite for dance music fans. In 1997,
Central Station released the first Wild FM compilation CD. And it was
simply massive. By the end of the decade, the many volumes of Wild compilations
that followed sold over one million units. Volume 9 alone, for instance,
sold over 200,000 copies.
The hit singles kept coming for Central's labels too,
chart-toppers by acts such as the Vengaboys (We Like To Party) and Eiffel
65 (Blue), UltraSonic, DJ Sammy, Armand Van Helden and many more. Central
Station Records continues to sell a lot of records, both in Australia
and internationally. Recent stars across the labels include the likes
of Roger Sanchez, Dannii Minogue, Tiësto, Infernal, Freeform Five,
Armin Van Buuren + local names like Ajax, Sneaky Sound System, BeXta,
Stafford Brothers, Slinkee Minx and just recently, PeeWee Ferris.
The contemporary management team believes the future for
the label is in developing artists rather than chasing one-hit-wonders.
And several of those artists, DJs and compilation projects are homegrown
in Australia. Series such as the on-going Nick Skitz's Skitzmix albums
(now up to Vol 22), as well as collaborative compilations with other
local Australian dance bodies such as Fuzzy and inthemix.com.au, continue
to sell huge numbers for Central. BeXta's Mixology series is now up
to Vol 8.
After 30 years, Jo and Morgan are now preparing to enter
what the latter describes as the "riding into the sunset"
phase of their business careers, happy to leave the bulk of the Central
Station work to a team they trust and personally trained.
Once the outsider, Central Station Records now has a long
on-going track record for hit records and, as such, has become a major
force in the mainstream Australian music industry.
All of these Central Station 30 Year Anniversary releases
are out now:
30 Years of Central Station Records: The History of Dance
Music in Australia (DVD)
The Early Years - Mixed by: Jo Palumbo & Paul Goodyear (2CD)
The House Years - Mixed by: GT & Matt Nugent (2CD)
The Hard Years - Mixed by: Nick Skitz & BeXta (2CD)
