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New Zealand Music Month |
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BrufordFreak 
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Honorary Collaborator Joined: January 25 2008 Location: Wisconsin Status: Offline Points: 7955 |
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 Posted: August 06 2021 at 06:25 |
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Yeah, problem: time and money are short so can't decide which album/EP to buy first. Think I'm gonna go with Momento Mori. Each one of those amazing four songs spoke to deeply and individually. Thought I was gonna float away or explode while listening to "Amino." Also, loved the vocalist on "A Copy of Yourself"--want more of that! I love the great, clear, melodic sound--such dynamic range in every track! |
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Drew Fisher
https://progisaliveandwell.blogspot.com/ |
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cstack3
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VIP Member Joined: July 20 2009 Location: Tucson, AZ USA Status: Offline Points: 6753 |
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Posted: August 08 2021 at 20:30 |
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From the Facebook post by the OP:
"A few years ago, I decided to make a list of 150 important and/or influential Kiwi albums. It’s on Facebook, but I think it can be viewed regardless of whether or not someone is signed up to that platform." The list is presented roughly chronologically. I don’t know exact release dates, and although I could probably have looked them up on Discogs, or similar, I don’t think the order matters too much, anyway. It’s a list. It has 150 items in it. That’s it, really...
Edited by cstack3 - August 08 2021 at 20:32 |
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I am not a Robot, I'm a FREE MAN!!
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nick_h_nz
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Prog Metal / Heavy Prog Team Joined: March 01 2013 Location: Suffolk, UK Status: Offline Points: 6737 |
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Posted: February 21 2022 at 02:53 |
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it looks like the last album from the above list I wrote about here was Cool Bananas, so heading back to Facebook, here’s what I wrote about the next two albums on the list, neither of which (despite their fame, importance and influence), I had ever listened to. And it seems one of them remains an album I’ve never listened to! 🙄
I couldn’t find the most celebrated Prince Tui Teka album anywhere to stream, but I didn’t want to not listen to him, so I chose to listen to his “The Māori Album” instead. I have vague memories of Prince Tui Teka performing on the telly, but I was a very young sprog. He has a wonderful voice, and it’s no wonder that with his physical presence, self-deprecating charm, and his voice, that he was as charismatic and well-loved as he was. I can’t say I would be rushing out to buy a Prince Tui Teka album after listening to this, but it was far more enjoyable than I expected it to be. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy Poi E, the album, as much as I did, either. Even though I love the song of the same name, I wasn’t sure I could listen to a whole album that sounded like that. But actually, there’s almost nothing else on the album that does sound like that. The album has a really interesting flow, as it moves across sounds and styles the further one progresses through it. I definitely prefer the earlier songs and tracks, as the sounds do tend to start to sound a little dated towards the end. No doubt they probably sounded fine at the time time, but I did almost hit the skip button once. Thankfully the album comes around full circle, and has an impressive final number in Paikea. Oh wait. What’s that? There’s another song. And there’s nothing wrong with it, per se, but it sticks out like a sore thumb. I guess I need to mention Poi E, the song. It’s pretty incredible really, that a song sung entirely in Māori topped the charts, staying at number one for four weeks, and not just becoming the biggest selling Kiwi song of 1984, but the biggest selling song of 1984. Even now, it’s still a well-loved and well-known song. A Kiwi institution. |
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nick_h_nz
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Prog Metal / Heavy Prog Team Joined: March 01 2013 Location: Suffolk, UK Status: Offline Points: 6737 |
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Posted: February 21 2022 at 03:02 |
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It didn’t occur to me when I made my list, because obviously I never imagined myself going through it as I have, but these next two albums next to each other in my list both have as their most successful single, an ode to a prostitute. 🤔
The Dance Exponents album I know and love, but I’ve never listened to a Sharon O’Neill album before. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, but less than I probably would if I were more familiar with it at the time. It reminds me of Pat Benatar, whose music I still like probably only because I liked it at the time. If I listened to a Pat Benatar album for the first time now, I suspect I would be as ambivalent about it as I am about this Sharon O’Neill album. So I don’t want to be too harsh about it. It sounds dated, as a lot of ‘80s albums do. You could say that Dance Exponents sound dated, too, but because they have a far rawer and less polished sound, it doesn’t stand out so much. I guess this is reflected in the fact that as successful as Maxine was at the time, it’s Victoria that has become the timeless Kiwi anthem. What Dance Exponents excelled at was their sing-a-long simplicity, that was made for the pub rock scene. I’ll Say Goodbye was one of my favourite songs as a wee sprog, and it wasn’t just me. I remember when a student teacher at intermediate school had us sing it as part of a music lesson. I don’t think I’ve ever known more enthusiasm from a class to sing a song. Followed by another duo of albums that are almost like Sharon O’Neill and Dance Exponents, in that one is polished and poppy and the other rawer and rockier. I liked The Narcs more than I expected to, but it is a really bizarre album that comes across like a band that hasn’t quite decided what their sound is. They had some massive success, helped a lot by being the support band for DD Smash, just as that band blew up across NZ; and they were one of very few Kiwi acts (apart from Split Enz) to get an international record deal. Yet, listening to the album now, after all this time, it’s kind of hard to know why. It’s almost a case of my liking every other song, and being indifferent or actively disliking those around. I don’t really mind the opening song (their biggest hit), but I think that’s more because of the rose tinted glow of nostalgia, and familiarity with it, than anything else. The band is at its best when it is making angular, spiky music caught halfway between new wave and new romantic - and the rest is just schmaltz and pap. The Mockers, though, are an entirely different kettle of fish. Their album from my list was restricted by geography, so I listened to their “definitive” compilation, which includes pretty much all the tracks from it. (I think only two were missing.) And I guess that goes to show how important this one album was in their discography, to take up the lion’s share of the compilation. The Mockers are still such a blast to listen to, and I really should buy this compilation. The Mockers must also have been one of the first rock bands I ever saw live, when I was around nine or ten. They played a free gig in the Octagon as part of the Dunedin Festival in, I’m guessing, 1985/86. I have only the vaguest memories of this, but they are good memories. Edited by nick_h_nz - February 21 2022 at 03:06 |
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nick_h_nz
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Prog Metal / Heavy Prog Team Joined: March 01 2013 Location: Suffolk, UK Status: Offline Points: 6737 |
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Posted: May 02 2022 at 02:28 |
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 It’s May once more, which means it is NZ Music Month once more, which reminds me once more that I have never been very good at keeping up my posts in this thread. So, continuing where I left off, the next three albums from “the list” that I listened to, I didn’t listen to. 🙄 Three more albums from my list (The Knobz, Herbs, and Netherworld Dancing Toys), that have geographical restrictions on their streaming, stopping me from listening to them. But, on the positive side, that’s only five albums in total so far - which is still a lot less than I was expecting. And I didn’t write much for the following two albums I listened to, either. Presumably because Dread, Beat & Blood and Aotearoa were two reggae bands, and I don’t really listen to or know enough about reggae to comment much. But as much as I didn’t really mind not listening to Herbs, due to geographic restrictions, I was very happy to be able to hear the albums from these two bands. These two albums were a very pleasant surprise. I don’t listen to a lot of reggae, and though it’s definitely not unknown for me to like some, there is usually more that doesn’t really do anything for me. I guess with Herbs being NZ’s most well-known reggae band, I was expecting these two bands to sound similar - and they really don’t at all. The Aotearoa album, especially, was really very enjoyable. I’ll definitely be listening to it again, and probably the Dread Beat and Blood album, too. Onwards…  Peking Man Peking Man wasn’t a wonderful listening experience, but it’s hard to know if it’s because it wasn’t that good, or just because the audio quality was so bad on the YouTube videos I had to use to listen to it. The album is available to listen to on all platforms, but it’s one of those that restricted by location. Unlike the others similarly restricted, though, I did manage to find user uploads for the whole album. Some of the videos were better quality sound than others, but none were as good as I would expect to hear from the official streams. Nevertheless, I plowed my way through it. And some of the songs are just as good as the one everyone knows from the album - but I would say less than half. Crowded House Crowded House, on the other hand. Well, there’s not really much that can be said about it. This is easily one of the most important albums in NZ music history, though almost for the wrong reasons. I’ve loved this album from the moment I first heard it. It’s an important album in NZ music history, but also an embarrassing one, really. It got next to no promotion, and virtually no radio play - the usual victim of NZ’s reluctance to play NZ music on the radio. It was only after the album (and particularly that song - you know which one) became huge internationally, that the NZ media not only realised they couldn’t afford to continue ignoring Crowded House, but decided to actively claim the band as one of our own. And in a way, they weren’t, as the band was two thirds Australian (although, some would argue that it was also two thirds Split Enz members, and Split Enz was undeniably a NZ band, as that’s why they’d changed their name from Ends to Enz). But regardless of nationality, Crowded House were the beginnings of an end to the cultural cringe when it came to NZ music. It would still be some time before NZ music was more widely appreciated, and even more before it was more widely celebrated- but there is no doubting that the beginnings of a movement towards more NZ music being played on the radio began here. |
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nick_h_nz wrote: