Great Australian Albums is a documentary series that takes you behind the scenes in the creation of four masterpiece albums. They also highlight the personal struggles of the artist.

The series features new and lengthy interviews with key performers, their colleagues explaining what really happened in the studio and after the gigs. Some of these stories are peppered with new performances recorded especially for the show and the artists reveal alternative mixes and early versions of songs that have become part of the national heritage.

These documentaries place the albums in their artistic, historical and cultural context.

Powderfinger released Odyssey #5 in 2000. The Brisbane group had formed in the late 1980s, on the fringe of the alternative rock scene. Powderfinger took their name form a Neil Young song and they replicated Young’s style of classic rock with an edge. The group had no image in the sense that they weren’t aligned to any particular fashion or tribe. They were modest interview subjects and generally projected an anti-style. For these reasons, little had been expected of the group in their early days and their first album was not a major commercial success. However, their uniquely laid-back Australianness contributed to their future success.

For the fourth album, Odyssey #5 the group was grappling with the pressure of their own success and the effect that it had had on their lives.

The challenge for Powderfinger as a group was to survive the increasingly confined world of alternative rock and connect with the suburban kids. The songs on the record reflect their growing maturity as musicians as they address issues that are both intensely personal and political.