East

By 1980, Cold Chisel had earned a reputation as a stellar live force thanks to their relentless touring and explosive, sweat-soaked concert extravaganzas. Such spectacles were, however, ill-fitting for Top 40 AM radio (the premier taste-making format for Australia in the late ’70s) preventing the band from truly crossing over into the mainstream. Keyboardist and songwriter Don Walker became fixated on changing that, and his razor-sharp determination led the group to radio success with their third album, East.

They achieved their goal with “Choirgirl” which, Walker tells Apple Music, was “the first time we went in and recorded something we thought could be a radio hit”. East also yielded the band’s first Top 10 single in “Cheap Wine”, cobbled together in the studio from a few different songs. Walker wasn’t, however, about to let mainstream aspirations dull his lyric-writing. Despite its angelic melody, “Choirgirl” is about a woman entering hospital for an abortion (“One nurse to hold her/One nurse to wheel her down”); “Four Walls” riffs on prison life (“Four walls, washbasin, prison bed”); and “Tomorrow” considers life after the slammer (“I’m three days out of Parramatta jail”). Top 40 subject matter it wasn’t.

Working with producer Mark Opitz for the first time, East also saw Walker loosen his grip on the songwriting, with each member contributing more than ever to the creative process. The results plunder a grab-bag of styles—there are flashes of reggae in “Best Kept Lies” (written by drummer Steve Prestwich), the Ian Moss-penned “Never Before” experiments with jazz, while frontman Jimmy Barnes’ “Rising Sun” is a raging R&B boogie.