Random notes
We randomly selected 31 New Zealand music stories, one for each day of New Zealand Music Month.
Each story links to a page with further information. They appear in no particular order.
New Zealand's national anthems
New Zealand Music Month would not be complete without looking at a song that we have sung (often badly) for over 130 years. It is our national anthem, ‘God defend New Zealand’, or, in te reo Maori, 'Aotearoa' More...
'Blue smoke'
In 1949 a disc featuring the song ‘Blue smoke’, written by Ruru Karaitiana and released on the TANZA label, became the first record wholly produced in New Zealand from composition to pressing. More...
Split Enz
In 1980 Split Enz put New Zealand music firmly on the international map with their breakthrough fifth album True colours. Theirs is a classic story of Kiwi battlers achieving through hard work and sacrifice. More...
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Sixty-one years old in 2008, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra travels over 40,000 kilometres a year to bring the best of the orchestral repertoire to New Zealanders from Kerikeri to Invercargill. More...
Sandy Edmonds, groovy baby
She was our first pop superstar of the TV age – a 1960s Kiwi Paris Hilton. Sandy Edmonds was the swinging, groovy face of youth on pop show C’Mon, even though her musical contribution is barely remembered. More...
No depression in New Zealand
Blam Blam Blam's 'There is no depression in New Zealand' was particularly meaningful for many in 1981, and some adopted it as an unofficial national anthem. It was also commercially successful and went gold a month after its release. More...
Loxene Golden Disc Awards
The Loxene Golden Disc Awards were the forerunner of today’s New Zealand Music Awards. The awards were designed to ‘create public awareness of the wealth and quality of New Zealand pop music talent’. More...
Kiwi klassics
Kiwi Records was a saviour of New Zealand composers. The label, started by publisher A.H. & A.W. Reed in 1957, was one of the few local outlets for recording classical music, assisting the careers of some of our most well-known classical musicians. More...
Devil's music – Timberjack
In 1971 Timberjack's song ‘Come to the Sabbat’ shocked many with its chorus of ‘Come, come, come to the Sabbat/ Come to the Sabbat – Satan's there.’ This wasn't the typical Loxene Golden Disc Award nominee. More...
'How bizarre'
‘One-hit wonder’, ‘rags to riches and then back to rags again’ – call it what you will, but the fact remains that the infectious 1995 hit ‘How bizarre’ by OMC is the biggest-selling New Zealand record of all time. More...
Kiwi Records
What could be a more apt record label for New Zealand music than Kiwi Records? This company began producing records in 1957, and its catalogue includes everything from Maori songs to the sounds of Antarctica. More...
Club culture
Today the music scene in New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland, is dominated by electronic music and DJ culture. This dance-floor revolution is a relatively recent phenomenon, having begun in the early 1980s. More...
'My old man's an All Black'
Gerry Merito wrote ‘My old man’s an All Black’ as a bitter-sweet parody of ‘My old man's a dustman’. His song used humour to comment on the decision of the 1960 All Blacks to tour South Africa without Maori players. More...
Riot 111 – subversive radicals
As a protest against Television New Zealand (TVNZ) refusing to play their music, Riot 111 staged a raucous concert outside the company's Avalon studios while punk supporters hoisted the A for Anarchy banner on the flagpole. More...
Dave Dobbyn and 'Loyal'
Although some say it is a song spoiled by overexposure, in 2006 an online survey of 3000 people chose Dave Dobbyn's 'Loyal' as New Zealand's greatest song ever. More...
Railway songs
Few New Zealand folk songs are as iconic as Peter Cape’s ‘Taumarunui (on the main trunk line)’, a tale of unrequited love between ‘an ordinary joker’ and a ‘sheila’ who works behind the counter at the town’s famous railway refreshment room More...
Shihad
Arriving in Los Angeles in early September 2001, the group Shihad found itself caught up in the fallout from the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The name Shihad sounded too much like jihad for American tastes – no one was going to say Shihad on the radio. More...
Queen Street riot, 1984
‘Tears, terror at the concert that made history’ was one of the newspaper headlines the day following the Queen Street riot of December 1984. All hell broke loose after a free concert at Aotea Square was stopped early. More...
New Zealand's first millon-selling song?
‘Now is the hour’ highlights the blending of Maori and European traditions in a song that could be embraced by both communities. It became a huge hit for some major stars, including Gracie Fields and Bing Crosbie. More...
The birth of Kiwi rock 'n' roll
In 1957 Johnny Cooper – 'the Maori cowboy' – recorded New Zealand's first rock 'n' roll hit, ‘Pie cart rock ’n’ roll’. His inspiration was the Whanganui pie cart where a meal of pea, pie and pud was always on hand . More...
Kiri Te Kanawa
Although her fame mostly came from performing music that was not New Zealand made, Kiri Te Kanawa also gained international exposure singing traditional and contemporary Maori songs. More...
Fat Freddy's Drop
In May 2005 the Wellington band Fat Freddy’s Drop burst onto the national scene with the release of their first studio album Based on a true story. The album went gold on its first day. More...
Suburban Reptiles – Kiwi punk
In a report on the Suburban Reptiles first concert, New Zealand Truth claimed that the festival the group was playing at was spoiled by ‘these hooligans’, and the article referred to spitting and abusive audiences. More...
Nature's best
‘Nature’, written by Wayne Mason for his band Fourmyula in 1969, reached number one on the charts in January 1970 and became a hit again in 1992 when it was recorded by New Zealand band The Mutton Birds. More...
'Join together'
The 1974 Commonwealth Games held in Christchurch was an odd coupling of 1970s cosmic harmony and cut-throat competition. The song that caught the mood of this Woodstock in tracksuits was Steve Allen’s hummable, even uplifting, anthem ‘Join together’. More...
'French letter'
Herbs 1982 hit 'French letter' came to express the country's anti-nuclear stance. It spent 11 weeks on the charts, peaking at number 15. The title itself was considered too risqué for radio and was released under the alternative ‘Letter to the French’. More...
The Whanganui Elvis
Johnny Devlin was New Zealand’s answer to Elvis Presley. His first performance at the Jive Centre electrified the fans. Young women and girls screamed hysterically as he sang and moved across the stage, all hip-wriggling, groin-grinding Presley style. More...
The birth and death of ... Goblin Mix
The birth and death of ..., by short-lived Auckland band Goblin Mix, was one of the great New Zealand albums of the mid-1980s. But today the band is probably best remembered as an ancestor of The 3Ds, the Dunedin group led by former Goblin Mix guitarist David Mitchell. More...
Songs of the sea
Ahoy there! Sea shanties, work songs sung on board sailing ships, were a feature of seafaring life in the 19th century. Although most shanties were of British or American origin, some had a distinctly New Zealand flavour. More...
'Poi E'
Written by Dalvanius Prime and Ngoi Pewhairangi, 'Poi E' was a massive hit for the Patea Maori Club in 1984, although it had actually been released the previous year. Some have called it New Zealand's first hip-hop hit. More...
'She's a mod'
No New Zealand song captures the joy, dizziness and sheer optimism of the 1960s youth experience better than the Ray Columbus and the Invaders’ three-time hit 'She’s a mod'. More...
