More People Really Should Know About: Michael Carpenter

The dividing line between genres can often be blurry at best, and americana, indie rock, country and power pop often overlap to the point that pigeonholing becomes pointless. An interesting example of skipping between and beyond genres is Australian singer/songwriter/producer Michael Carpenter. He’s also representative of a whole continent full of music that is barely mentioned on this side of the planet.

With a producing career going back to 1992, featuring in AUK reviews of fellow Australian artist Harvey Russell and working with Australian alt-country label Stanley Records, he has worked on hundreds of albums, picking up ARIA and Golden Guitar nominations along the way.

As an artist, he started out with hugely influential power pop label Not Lame in 1999 with an album, “Baby”, which has some good songs and lots of promise, with plenty of room for growth. That aspect of his career culminated in 2015’s “The Big Radio” which is a highlight of jangle pop from that decade. Claiming that he was going into ‘solo artist retirement’ with its release, he was in fact just shifting direction.

Having released albums with his band The Cuban Heels, which had a more americana slant to them for several years before his “retirement”, 2016 saw the release of “Ain’t Nothing Left To Say” a record fit to stand with the best albums reviewed in these pages. He’s also released 6 volumes of “S.O.O.P (Songs of Other People)” which include a selection of covers, some closely following the original (Tom Petty’s ‘The Waiting,’ Steely Dan’s ‘FM’) and some, like ‘Stagefright’ and ‘(What’s So Funny About) Peace, Love & Understanding’ where he’s taken them in a new direction. The “S.O.O.P” records show a marked preference for Nick Lowe songs, and that may be a good pointer to understanding Carpenter’s career. In the same way, as Lowe has been part of bands, produced and released solo records in a variety of styles without ever feeling the need to be tied down to a particular role, so has Michael Carpenter.

The last decade has seen him move further into traditional country with Australian duo The Banks Brothers, and a superb americana-based album with another Australian hidden treasure, Allan Caswell. He’s produced tribute albums to Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks, and in 2020 said “I feel like so much has happened in the last few years, that it’s time that I got off the sideline and back into the game. I’m ready!” It took 5 years, but just this February, he released a single, ‘If Tomorrow Was Today,’ so far only streaming, but it pulls together the pop and country strands of his music very nicely.

Last November he said on his Facebook page: “I’ve been spending some time thinking about what I want to do. I know what I like. I think I’ve been trying to perfect my style of pop music for my whole career. And a lot of the stuff I’ve done I love. It sounds just like me. But do I just keep doing the same thing? I don’t really have much desire to be “edgy for edgy’s sake”…  is it solo project time? Covers? Collabs? Powerpop? Country? All of the above? None of the above? I’m in the funny place of having 4 or 5 songs stockpiled in every direction.” The answer for those of us who have found his music is a very definite “all of the above.”

If we see “americana” as being about the influence of American music styles on those who love them and want to play music which reflects that love (another definition to throw into the pot) then Michael Carpenter is actually the quintessential americana artist. Carpenter described “Ain’t Nothing Left To Say” as “Pop songs with twang and swagger, made with a lot of love…” You could easily call his more power/indie pop albums “pop songs with jangle and swagger,” and the whole pointless debate about genre breaks down, and we should just go off and listen to Michael Carpenter’s universally excellent music and wonder what else Australia is keeping to itself.

For me one of the best of Michael Carpenter’s power pop songs, but you could hear The Long Ryders doing this without a lot of difference…

The Cuban Heels’ finest hour was ‘Ain’t Nothing Left To Say’, and this also blends the pop and country sides and works brilliantly.

From his mostly very good Petty tribute, the drift towards country continues…

And fetches up here.