Gudinski began promoting rock dances around Melbourne while still in his teens and moved into music agency work in the late 1960s. This led to the establishment of the Consolidated Rock artist agency in around 1970.

Michael Solomon Gudinski, AM (born 22 August 1952) is an Australian entrepreneur and businessman currently based in Melbourne who is a leading figure in the Australian music industry. Gudinski is mostly known for forming the highly successful Australian record company Mushroom Records in 1972 through whom he signed several generations of Australian musicians and performers ranging from MacKenzie Theory, the Skyhooks, The Choirboys, Kylie Minogue, and New Zealand’s Split Enz to newer artists such as Eskimo Joe, Evermore and others forging a string of successful releases by local talent. He is the father of singer Kate Alexa, who has been signed to his record label Liberation Music since mid-2004.

Gudinski and fellow music agent Ray Evans formed Mushroom Records in late 1972. The company’s first album was an ambitious triple-LP live recording of the 1973 Sunbury Festival. In its first few years Mushroom released albums and singles by some of the most significant Australian rock acts of the period, including Madder Lake, MacKenzie Theory, Matt Taylor and The Dingoes.

Mushroom struggled to survive for its first two years, hampered by lack of airplay on commercial radio, and the company reportedly came close to folding on several occasions. But the label was dramatically pushed to the forefront of the Australian music scene in early 1975 with the massive success of Skyhooks, whose debut album Living in the 70’s became the biggest-selling Australian LP ever released up to that time.

In 1977 Gudinski opened the music venue Bombay Bicycle Club in Bourke Street, Melbourne, soon moving it to Sydney Road Brunswick and renaming it Bombay Rock. This became one of the premier music venues of Australian and international rock bands in Melbourne.

Around the same time, Gudinski was convinced to sign expatriate New Zealand band Split Enz, who had recently relocated to Australia. Although they had only moderate success for the first few years, Split Enz scored huge success in 1980 with the release of their album True Colours and the hit single I Got You, which marked the emergence of Neil Finn.

In 1988, Gudinski co-founded Melodian Records with Ian Meldrum.

In the early 1990s Gudinski sold 49% of Mushroom to News Ltd, who had owned Australia’s largest record label, Festival Records since 1961. In 1992 he was awarded an ARIA Award for Special Achievement (as well as Mushroom Records), while in 2013 he was acknowledged as the inaugural ARIA Industry Icon. At the APRA Music Awards of 1998 he won the Ted Albert Award for Outstanding Services to Australian Music. He controversially sold his remaining 51% share to News in 1999 for a reported A$60 million, claiming that the sale was a protest against the changes to Australia’s parallel record importation regulations, a stance many saw as disingenuous and hypocritical.

In November 2005, shortly after the sale of Festival Mushroom’s recording division to Warner Music Australia, Gudinski purchased Festival’s publishing division for an undisclosed sum.

On 12 June 2006, in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List, he was made a Member (AM) of the Order of Australia.