Songs to Play
album by Robert Forster

Songs to Play is the sixth solo album by Australian singer-songwriter Robert Forster, released by Universal Music Australia in 2015. It peaked in the lower reaches of the German and Austrian charts. It was nominated at the 2016 ARIA Music Awards for Best Adult Contemporary Album, but lost to Bernard Fanning for Civil Dusk.
Details
Scott Bromiley and Luke McDonald of the band The John Steel Singers played many instruments on the album and were also credited as co-producers. Forster had previously produced their debut album, Tangalooma. Forster said, "from very early on I wanted to work with Scott and Luke from The John Steel Singers. I had most of the album written by about 2010 or 2011, and I had them over to the house and I just said, 'Look, I'd love to work with you on the next album, and you take the songs where you want to take them. I'm not just having you over here to play bass and guitar — go with it. Bring your sensibility into the songs and we can work together on them.'"
It was also the first of Forster's album's to feature a strong contribution from his wife, Karin Bäumler, something they had wanted to do for some time.
Forster was insistent that the recording be analogue.
“Songs to Play” enters the record as album by Robert Forster. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Songs, Play and album can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Songs to Play” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Songs, Play and album provides the most credible route into that argument.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 28, 2022. The linked authority identifier is Q21775894. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2015, 2016, 2010 and 2011.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Songs to Play”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Songs to Play primary sources, Songs to Play archive and Songs research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Songs to Play”?
- How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Songs to Play” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.