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. In 1993, Kent collated his charts into a book, Australian Chart Book, 1970–1992. 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.

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).^{[citation needed]}

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. Kent kept his own tally of the positions provided by Sydney radio stations.

Kent initially worked for record companies, EMI and Polygram, and avidly collected record charts as hobby

In 1958, radio station 2UE provided the first give-away charts in record stores, with the first national chart, compiled for Go-Set magazine by rock journalist Ed Nimmervoll, appearing in October 1966. 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.