Forever Five: Glenn Richards (Augie March)

Waxx Lyrical
2 days ago
3 min read

Ever wondered what albums sit atop your favourite artists’ turntables? Forever Five is a Waxx Lyrical series spotlighting the five records that shaped the artists we love most. No rankings, no essays — just the albums that live closest to their hearts. Come for the choices, stay for the typically remarkable playlist that follows — woven from their picks and their own catalogue — culminating in a fascinating little mini music lesson every time.

Explore more in the Media Centre and on Instagram via #waxxlyricalforeverfive.

GLENN RICHARDS

🛠️ The poet-engineer of Australian indie rock.

🧭 A melodic architect with a novelist’s eye for detail.

✨ A songwriter who makes the ordinary feel mythic.

🐘 The quiet giant of Augie March.

For more than two decades, Glenn Richards has been one of Australia’s most distinctive, quietly brilliant songwriters — an architect of language, melody, and emotional weight. As the voice and chief songwriter of Augie March, he’s penned some of the most enduring lines in modern Australian music: the rumbling, literary sweep of Sunset Studies, the devastating poetics of Strange Bird, and the lightning-strike success of One Crowded Hour, a song that felt like canon the moment it touched the airwaves.

Born in Shepparton and now residing in West Hobart, Richards is something of an anomaly in the world of “Aussie rock”. He writes global-ready beauties that feel less at home in a sweaty pub and more suited to the great theatres of Europe — such is the class, precision and outright beauty of his material. His craft isn’t loud; it’s luminous.

With Moo, You Bloody Choir turning twenty next year — and the band preparing to perform it in full for the very first time — Richards stands at an intriguing crossroads: a national treasure revisiting a masterpiece, while simultaneously recording his next project (slated for UK and European release in 2026).

Through all of it, his compass remains unchanged: great songwriting, great records, and the restless curiosity that has fuelled every Augie March chapter since the mid-90s.

So what shaped an artist like Glenn Richards? What lives on his personal altar of influence?

Here are his Forever Five.

Forever Five Kris Sch

LISTEN — GLENN RICHARDS' FOREVER FIVE

A trio of tracks from each of his choices, plus an essential five tracks of his own.

The resulting playlist flows like a mini music history lesson.

Forever Five Glenn Richards Augie March

THE FIVE

JOHN CALE — Paris 1919 (1973)

A chamber-pop dreamscape from the Velvet Underground co-founder: ornate, literate, strange in the most elegant way. Cale folds European history, surreal humour and bittersweet melody into something that feels both feather-light and heavy with meaning — a sensibility that echoes through Augie March’s own lush, baroque instincts.

CROW — Li-Lo-Ing (1995)

A cult Australian classic from the tragically under-sung Sydney band. Li-Lo-Ing is brittle, bold, and haunted — the sound of a group dragging beauty out of dissonance. For a writer like Richards, its emotional volatility and jagged brilliance make perfect sense as a guiding light.

GUIDED BY VOICES — Alien Lanes (1995)

The lo-fi Bible. Bursting with hooks, half-songs, whole miracles, and the kind of fearless, spontaneous craftsmanship that says: “Just make the damn art.” It’s messy, immediate and wildly melodic — a reminder that perfection is overrated and spark often arrives in under two minutes.

ELIOT FISK — Paganini: 24 Caprices (1992)

A virtuosic detour into the world of classical mastery. Fisk’s performances of Paganini’s fiendish caprices are sharp, ferocious and technically outrageous. It’s easy to hear why a songwriter obsessed with precision, texture and craft would gravitate toward this level of discipline and expression.

XTC — Apple Venus (1999)

Pastoral, orchestral, and stunningly arranged, Apple Venus is XTC at their most ambitious. It’s a lush tapestry of English pop eccentricity — strings, woodwinds, wit, heartbreak. A natural influence for anyone who gravitates toward grandeur without grandeur’s ego.