The Music Honours Thirteen Years Of Music Journalism With Pilerats Archive

Australia’s largest hub for music journalism, The Music, is pleased to announce today the acquisition of over ten thousand articles from the Pilerats archive, ensuring that the history and hard work of the respected indie blog is not lost. 

When the publication folded early this year and its social assets were taken over by The Black Hoody, The Music was able to work with the publication’s previous custodians to ensure important stories, including the foundational early years of artists like The Kid LAROI, Tasman Keith, Alex The Astronaut, Gang of Youths and many more are preserved. 

“The Pilerats archive is one of the most important existing archives of Australian music content from the last decade and a half,” said The Music publisher and CEO Stephen Green. “We’ve seen the destruction of history as sites like Mess + Noise, InTheMix, FasterLouder, and more have been switched off without care or concern for their legacies or the work that music journalists have toiled over.

“Our ongoing program of rescuing as much content as possible to preserve our cultural stories will be greatly enhanced with the foundational content of Pilerats. We thank the Pilerats team for trusting us to respect and care for these important stories.”

While the heyday of the “indie music blog” has passed, Pilerats, along with its contemporaries like Purple Sneakers and Who The Hell, were among the first media to cover many Australian acts that would go on to lead the industry. An important source of music discovery, these archives track the careers and journeys of many of today’s Australian superstars. 

The Music’s archiving project has seen the digitisation of content from print street press, including Drum Media, Inpress, Rave Magazine, and many more, giving open access to previously lost content and histories of Australian music. Its web database also includes Purple Sneakers, Kill Your Stereo and now Pilerats, with more historical titles being sought to add to the rich history of Australian stories.

As its web archive grows, The Music will continue to be the source of historical record for Australian music, with artist profiles bringing together content from across historical publications in the one place for the first time. 

“We are incredibly happy to see the Pilerats archive live on and for the work of our journalists continue to be available for hopefully generations of music fans to come,” said Alex Paioff, CEO of Made in the Pile. “It is heartening to see that the industry values the work that Pilerats was able to contribute to Australian music for over thirteen years and that it will now be preserved.”

All Pilerats content is now available to read at TheMusic.com.au/pilerats.