Don McLean label for his second album, "American Pie." The album launched two number one hits in the title song and "Vincent". "American Pie"'s success made McLean an international star and piqued interest in his first album, which charted more than two years after its initial release. McLean's magnum opus, "American Pie", is a sprawling, impressionistic ballad inspired partly by the deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper) in a plane crash in 1959, and developments in American youth culture in the subsequent decade. The song popularized the expression "The Day the Music Died" in reference to
The plane crash (Neighbours) Morning Herald", enjoyed the storyline branding it "the plane crash we had to have." He also suggested Network Ten should have had a competition for viewers to select which characters should survive and die in a ""Big Brother" meets Agatha Christie" style. Anderson was upset at the thought of Susan Kennedy dying and questioned "They wouldn't kill her off, surely." A "Daily Record" reporter commented that while the Ramsay Street residents were not strangers to disasters, all previous events "pale in comparison" to the "shocking" plane crash. Brian Courtis from "The Age" was not a fan of the storyline giving