Article The Easybeats: From power pop to Oz rock Jon Stratton University of South Australia, Australia Abstract The Easybeats’ 1960s career is viewed as being in two halves. In the first, they played pop songs composed by Stevie Wright and George Young. The group was incredibly suc- cessful in Australia spawning the term Easyfever to describe the adulation heaped on them by mainly teenage girls. In the second half, the group go to England and Young starts writing with Harry Vanda. The group had one huge international hit ‘Friday On My Mind’ and then their popularity declines as their audience loses interest in the group’s more complex music and seemingly sophisticated lyrics. In this article I argue that the earlier songs can be read in terms of power pop avant la lettre and that a continuity can be discerned between the earlier songs and certain key later songs as Vanda and Young begin to develop a harder melodic rock sound anchored in power pop aesthetics that will be the template for AC/DC, a group that included Young’s two younger brothers, and which helped define the generic form of Oz rock. I argue for the importance of Snowy Fleet’s Merseybeat experience in the creation of the early sound, analyse the group’s appeal for teenage girls and discuss the later song ‘Good Times’ as a melodic hard rock precursor of the kind of music played by AC/DC. Keywords Beatles, Dick Diamonde, Easybeats, ‘Friday On My Mind’, George Young, Gordon ‘Snowy’ Fleet, Harry Vanda, Missing Links, Stevie Wright Outside of Australia the Easybeats are known as one hit wonders (see Stratton, 2007: 25–56). Their track ‘Friday On My Mind’ reached no. 6 on the UK chart and no. 16 on the US Billboard chart. That it got to no. 1 on the Australian chart was no surprise. By 1967 when it was released the Easybeats had already had six top 10 singles. Corresponding author: Jon Stratton, UniSA Creative, University of South Australia, UniSA City West Campus, North Terrace Adelaide, AU-SA South Australia 5001, Australia. Email: jon_stratton22@outlook.com.au Thesis Eleven 2023, Vol. 176(1) 24–48 ª The Author(s) 2023 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/07255136231165805 journals.sagepub.com/home/the