David Kent

David Cyril Kent (born 3 February 1941) is an Australian music historian and pop culture writer. Kent produced the Kent Music Report, compiling the national music chart from May 1974 to 1996; it was known as the Australian Music Report from 1987. The music reports were a weekly listing of the National Top 100 chart positions of singles and albums.

Kent's music reports were used by Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) as its official ARIA Charts from mid-1983 until July 1988 when ARIA developed an in-house chart.

Kent continued to publish his Australian Music Report on a weekly basis until 1996. He followed with Australian Chart Book (1940–1969) in 2005, Australian Chart Book (1993–2005) in 2006, and The Australian top 20 book (1940–2006) in 2007.

Early life David Kent was born in Mount Lawley (a suburb of Perth), Western Australia, Australia, to Cyril Kent (an industrial chemist) and Marjorie Goodwin (née Dalton).

He listened to local radio broadcasts of top hits such as "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley in 1955.

Australia had no nationwide chart system for singles or albums when Kent was a youth. For 18 months, Kent researched Australian music charts and developed a ranking system based on radio station charts from around the country, and from May 1974 he compiled the Kent Music Report.

Kent's aims were to provide the Australian music industry with information on singles and albums, and to chronicle the history of music tastes. ARIA licensed the Kent Music Report from mid-1983 to publish the ARIA Charts under its banner until the week ending 26 June 1988. This meant that Kent could no longer compile reliable sales information.