Are there any websites out there that list singles by the date they were released in the digital age? Discogs doesn't really help, and nor do the aria reports on trove. Aria reports on trove are probably more helpful for album release dates but often for singles the release date on wiki isn't the same for Australia when i check on trove

Depends a bit on what sort of artist/single you're looking at

-Genius isn't usually verified but it's frequently one of the most accurate sources I know
-Often times there'll be a day one YouTube upload that could still be kicking around
-Solid chance an artist has social media and posted about the new release on the very day
-If they're high profile enough, you can look for blogs or articles from the day of release too
-If I know it had some sort of splash on day one, iTunesCharts.net (when it's working) is a fairly reliable archive. kworb.net also has an archive but it's a little tougher to search through

Thank you very much Jinx. Greatly appreciated.

Apple/Spotify, these are noted per release, not a list, plus not exhaustive and old 're-releases' dont have the old date, finding mismatching release dates is almost exclusively a pre-digital thing

have used YT dates if it appears there first - do you take into account timezones? NMF i find they all release at midnight, but my midnight is different to others', what if the artist is on the other side of the world?!!

https://musicbrainz.org is something i used to use

really do wish discogs would pull release date data but it seems user-driven still

I've noticed looking through the ARIA reports that are on trove that with new releases they tend to list stuff that is available through a physical medium such as compact discs and vinyl. So not all releases are covered if it's released as a download. I may well be wrong on this but it's what i've noticed

expanding on this topic:

were there any sources for (weekly) dates of singles released in Australia pre-May 1978?

NofZ, just the Kent/AMR reports listed new releases from late 1975 onwards.

Otherwise, the listings I posted ages ago in the yearly files (1975, 1976, etc) in the 'Special Occasion Charts' section does have the chart entries in chronological order (date) so most things would have charted after their release (not everything of course).

https://www.australian-charts.com/forum.asp?todo=subforum&subforum=48&pages=8