Post by Stephany on Nov 22, 2007 10:56:20 GMT
Hi everyone,
Music Week has published an interesting article about New Zealand's music industry. Hayley is, as we would expect, mentioned.
[/color]
Of the many musical scenes thriving in this nation of 4m inhabitants, the loose affiliation of roots-based acts has become pre-eminent. Fat Freddy's Drop return with a new album in early 2008 and will be seen gigging at many of their regular summer festival haunts prior to its release. Waikato roots specialists Katchafire have had wide international success, reaching the top five of Billboard's US reggae chart and increasing their European touring base.
Salmonella Dub have just released a fine album, as has their former lead vocalist, the supremely talented Tiki Taane. However, the year has definitely belonged to Kora, a band based around tight vocal harmonies and a muscular twist of heavy rock and riddum. Koras' self-titled, independently-released album topped New Zealand's album charts on its release and marched straight to gold status.
New Zealand groups bending off that genre into more frenzied dancefloor- fuelling activity have been busy in 2007, with Shapeshifter, Concord Dawn, Minuit and North Shore Pony Club all making lengthy international sojourns throughout the year.
New Zealand's hard rock, metal and punk acts have had a comparatively quiet year, with scene lynchpins Blindspott breaking up after just two albums. However, 8 Foot Sativa continue their own merry way, with fourth album Poison Of Ages released in 2007. Hardcore rockers The Bleeders have finished their self-titled follow-up to last year's number two hit and multi-award-winning As Sweet As Sin. Meanwhile, the country's black leather-clad rockers are waiting with bated breath for news of a new Shihad album due in early 2008.
The Kiwi indie scene has long thrived on the back of Flying Nun and the label, now under the wing of new owner Warner Bros, continues to deliver great bands. The Mint Chicks' afore-mentioned record has turned them into one of the label's biggest sellers in its 25-year history. The Phoenix Foundation bring a blend of widescreen indie and a touch of prog to bear on the band's third album and first for the label Happy Ending while The Shocking Pinks have come from the Nun stable to be signed by DFA.
For longtime fans of the New Zealand guitar underground, Warner issued a Flying Nun boxed-set compiled by label founder Roger Shepherd, who has now made his way home after a decade in London. The 80-track, four-
CD set shows what a labour of love a great record label should be and will be an essential purchase for Flying Nun's many fans.
Dirty Records' Scribe returned last month with second album Rhymebook and, true to form, the undisputed heavyweight MC of the hip-hop scene down under headed straight into the Top 10 on both sides of the Tasman Sea, debuting at number nine in Australia and collecting a gold sales award with his number four placing in New Zealand. Elsewhere, it has proved a tough year for New Zealand hip-hop after a halcyon period. New MCs are on the rise, including Young Sid on the Move The Crowd label, but it has been a difficult time for previously high-flying label Dawn Raid, which was recently rescued from receivership - a sign of the generally difficult market conditions for the genre's local exponents.
News of a steady decline in physical sales in the New Zealand market will not shock anyone anywhere. Retailer The Warehouse is, and has been for several years, the largest CD outlet in the country. Established music chains Sounds, The CD Store and Real Groovy (the latter running perhaps the most successful business model of combining new and used CDs and vinyl at the core of its business as well as selling merchandise, including DVDs, books and clothing) have been joined in the market in 2007 by Australian chain JB Hi-Fi, whose four new stores in the Auckland region have given a boost to the local music market.
An iTunes store finally came online for New Zealanders in December 2006, joining digital market leader Digirama and local music specialist site Amplifier in attempting to bring the country's late-developing legal download market up to speed. The most successful digital initiatives, however, have come from telcos, with Vodafone and Telecom engaged in a battle for domination of the downloads-to-handset market and doing far healthier business than their computer-bound digital competitors.
Most music-related online activity is, unsurprisingly, based around social networking sites, with Bebo outdoing MySpace in school-age demos while Facebook emerged as the preferred office-space online timewaster of the year. As far as non-networking sites go, fans are catered for by a couple of decent mail-order services from Smokecds.com and Realgroovy.co.nz, while the community-based Nzmusic.com exists for those generally interested in local music, alongside Biggie.co.nz for the clubbing crowd and Cheeseontoast.co.nz, which caters for the net- active indie scene.
The 2006 arrival of MTV added to the music television market in New Zealand without becoming more than a small-time player in its first year on air. MTV was last seen in the market when its UK version was aired in the country as a network spoiler to local independent music channels a decade ago and it has faced stiff competition from the market leader, Mediaworks' free-to-air C4, as well as the long- established Juice and J2 brands. They have in turn been joined by Sky's Alt TV, a station that occasionally struggles to stay on air - in recent weeks it has been sin-binned a couple times and forced off air for five hours for breaches of broadcasting standards - but brings a colourful blend of music videos and presenters to its niche.
In the crowded local radio market, The Rock has emerged as the nation's highest-rating radio network, even beating longstanding talk radio network kings in the latest national book, which surely says something for New Zealanders' broadcasting tastes. The saturated pop and adult contemporary market is battled out between competing conglomerates Mediaworks and TRN. Interest and government money has been directed at new network Kiwi FM with its eclectic and exclusively New Zealand music playlist and its new Worldwide programme that plays midnight-to-dawn in New Zealand and afternoons in the UK, on www.kiwifm.co.nz .
Alternative radio remains the domain of the b.net (formerly student) radio stations and, in late November, the b.net stations host the last major awards ceremony of New Zealand's music year, with 19 award categories fought out by a number of bands.
If we look to their artist of the year finalists, there is a hint towards some local acts the wider world might be hearing about in the future - they are contested by Liam Finn, Cut Off Your Hands, The Brunettes, Bachelorette and Little Bushman. And, with a little luck, these acts will be eclipsing the fictional Conchords duo in the global limelight in 2008.
[/size][/quote]
Stephany
Music Week has published an interesting article about New Zealand's music industry. Hayley is, as we would expect, mentioned.
NEW ZEALAND: Flight of the Kiwis
24 November 2007
Music Week
Copyright 2007. CMP Information Limited. All rights reserved.
by Alister Bronson
With the last couple of years witnessing the construction of a 12,000- capacity arena in Auckland, the launch of MTV and iTunes New Zealand and a solid infrastructure threatening to spill into international waters, the `Land of the Conchords' has arrived on the world's stage. Local music expert Alister Bronson gives us the lowdown on a hotbed of talent
In a year without a Peter Jackson blockbuster or an All Blacks World Cup victory, the surreal blend of comedy and music that is Flight Of The Conchords - a TV show based around the exploits and songs of a struggling fictitious Kiwi duo of the same name - has done more for New Zealand's international profile in 2007 than anything else.
The HBO network series has made its way to serious cult status in the US and other markets with great reviews and viewing figures, made up of both network screenings and YouTube clips, in their millions.
When Flight Of The Conchords' manager and New Zealand deputy cultural attache Murray Hewitt (played by London-based Kiwi stand-up Rhys Darby) hosted the New Zealand party at the CMJ Music Marathon in New York last month, the event was a crowded-out success - due in part to hipsters checking out Murray's latest talent-spotting but also a line-up of some of the best young acts to emerge from New Zealand in years.
The showcase was put on by NZ On Air through its Phase Five programme and the NZ Music Commission. On stage that day were highly-touted popsters Cut Off Your Hands, recently signed to 679, Full Time Hobby's teenage retro rockers The Checks, indie act The Brunettes (signed to Sub Pop in the US) and Liam Finn, the singularly talented progeny of Crowded House's Neil who has come of age with his solo album, I'll Be Lighting, after stepping away from his former band Betchadupa.
Liam has also spent time onstage with his father's band throughout 2007, as Crowded House toured the world in support of their critically acclaimed new album Time On Earth. Much of that album was recorded in Neil's new Auckland studio complex Roundhead, a state-of-the-art facility with pride of place going to a Neve console originally built for The Who, which spent a couple of decades at the legendary Bearsville Studio in upstate New York. Roundhead officially opened in May with a night of live performances by Finn, his friends and many other Kiwi music luminaries that was webcast for four hours. Meanwhile, the latest announcement from the Finn camp is three dates in New Zealand in March 2008 by Split Enz.
Two major award events, the APRA Silver Scroll and the New Zealand Hall of Fame, dominate the New Zealand music calendar. Taking place in September, this year's APRA saw 23-year-old Brooke Fraser collect the country's premier songwriting award (the Scroll itself has been passed along from winner to winner each year since the 1965). Fraser, whose two albums have sold in excess of 200,000 copies, won the prize for the title track to her second album Albertine and also took the award for the most-played song on radio with Deciphering Me from the same album. This year's inaugual New Zealand Music Hall Of Fame, meanwhile, saw Jordan Luck, singer and songwriter for long-standing popular rockers The Exponents, become its first inductee.
A month later, it was the turn of The Mint Chicks to dominate proceedings at the Tuis, the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand's music awards. The Flying Nun-signed act's sophomore album Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No? delivered on all the promise of the group's manic early singles with a damaged pop sensibility and managed to sneak a hit single in there, too. It was a sweep of best group, best album and best rock album for the group, as well as the technical awards they collected earlier for the record's production - by guitarist Ruban Neilson and his father Chris - and its cover art - again, the work of Ruban Neilson.
The other major winner at the Tui Awards was singer Hollie Smith, who collected three awards for her debut, entitled Long Player. Smith has been signed by the Manhattan division of EMI's Blue Note label in the USA and her album, already a platinum seller at home, is set for worldwide release by the company in 2008.
The awards' finale celebrated 69-year-old Johnny Devlin, the Wanganui rock and roller who became the second inductee into the new Hall of Fame.
New Zealand's place on the international live circuit received a boost in 2007 with the arrival of the 12,000-capacity Vector Arena in Auckland. Already host to a number of major concerts from acts such as Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bob Dylan, Guns N' Roses, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, Crowded House and The Cure, the Vector has given promoters some much-needed encouragement to secure big acts that were bypassing the country because of a lack of a suitable venue in New Zealand's biggest city.
Once New Zealand's concertgoers attune themselves to the fact that listening to a band in an arena is not like hearing them on a home stereo - even if the view is sometimes like a 17-inch TV set - a rosy future for the Vector looks assured. Letters to the editor of the New Zealand Herald complaining about the acoustics and the queues at the venue's bar have already begun to tail off.
In general, the live music sector continues to be on the up, albeit with the constant opening and closing of venues in all centres becoming something bands and promoters have to contend with.
With the southern hemisphere summer just around the corner, Kiwis will be heading to the beach for their extended Christmas holidays and a string of popular pub touring acts have already booked and announced beach tours. Plenty of other laidback gentlefolk will be gathering at ever-popular coastal festivals like Rhythm & Vines and Parihaka Festival to smoke up the vibes and the sunshine. The biennial favourites Splore and Rippon both return as summer festival highlights in February 2008 alongside any number of reggae and dub-oriented events around the country.
Australasian heavyweight the Big Day Out still rules the festival scene, with its January 2008 line-up in Auckland boasting Rage Against The Machine, Bjork and Arcade Fire alongside a host of local name acts. A sell-out crowd of more than 40,000 is expected. The following weekend, more than 25,000 people will attend Parachute, the largest three-day contemporary Christian music festival in that part of the world and in March another huge audience will flock to Womad in Taranaki where 400 acts are scheduled to perform.
The quirkiest festival event on the local music calendar might just be February's Camp A Low Hum, a defiantly indie event in its second year that is so confident of its pulling power that it does not publicly announce a line-up before its four-day schedule of music camp festivities kick off.
An emerging part of the outdoor events market has been the use of some of New Zealand's many picturesque vineyards as concert settings and, in February 2008, there are two major tours going out to NZ's wineries. Brooke Fraser headlines one tour with Goldenhorse and Anika Moa, while Hayley Westenra and old hand Dave Dobbyn will cater to a slightly more sedentary but no less thirsty crowd when they share the stage at some of the nation's biggest vineyard venues.
Westenra, who signed to Decca after being discovered singing on Christchurch streets, has now sold more than 3.5m albums worldwide and has been joined on Universal UK's pop classical roster by another emerging Kiwi talent: 23-year-old Will Martin, tipped by many to be the pin-up boy of classical crossover with his highly-touted debut album set for global release in early 2008.
24 November 2007
Music Week
Copyright 2007. CMP Information Limited. All rights reserved.
by Alister Bronson
With the last couple of years witnessing the construction of a 12,000- capacity arena in Auckland, the launch of MTV and iTunes New Zealand and a solid infrastructure threatening to spill into international waters, the `Land of the Conchords' has arrived on the world's stage. Local music expert Alister Bronson gives us the lowdown on a hotbed of talent
In a year without a Peter Jackson blockbuster or an All Blacks World Cup victory, the surreal blend of comedy and music that is Flight Of The Conchords - a TV show based around the exploits and songs of a struggling fictitious Kiwi duo of the same name - has done more for New Zealand's international profile in 2007 than anything else.
The HBO network series has made its way to serious cult status in the US and other markets with great reviews and viewing figures, made up of both network screenings and YouTube clips, in their millions.
When Flight Of The Conchords' manager and New Zealand deputy cultural attache Murray Hewitt (played by London-based Kiwi stand-up Rhys Darby) hosted the New Zealand party at the CMJ Music Marathon in New York last month, the event was a crowded-out success - due in part to hipsters checking out Murray's latest talent-spotting but also a line-up of some of the best young acts to emerge from New Zealand in years.
The showcase was put on by NZ On Air through its Phase Five programme and the NZ Music Commission. On stage that day were highly-touted popsters Cut Off Your Hands, recently signed to 679, Full Time Hobby's teenage retro rockers The Checks, indie act The Brunettes (signed to Sub Pop in the US) and Liam Finn, the singularly talented progeny of Crowded House's Neil who has come of age with his solo album, I'll Be Lighting, after stepping away from his former band Betchadupa.
Liam has also spent time onstage with his father's band throughout 2007, as Crowded House toured the world in support of their critically acclaimed new album Time On Earth. Much of that album was recorded in Neil's new Auckland studio complex Roundhead, a state-of-the-art facility with pride of place going to a Neve console originally built for The Who, which spent a couple of decades at the legendary Bearsville Studio in upstate New York. Roundhead officially opened in May with a night of live performances by Finn, his friends and many other Kiwi music luminaries that was webcast for four hours. Meanwhile, the latest announcement from the Finn camp is three dates in New Zealand in March 2008 by Split Enz.
Two major award events, the APRA Silver Scroll and the New Zealand Hall of Fame, dominate the New Zealand music calendar. Taking place in September, this year's APRA saw 23-year-old Brooke Fraser collect the country's premier songwriting award (the Scroll itself has been passed along from winner to winner each year since the 1965). Fraser, whose two albums have sold in excess of 200,000 copies, won the prize for the title track to her second album Albertine and also took the award for the most-played song on radio with Deciphering Me from the same album. This year's inaugual New Zealand Music Hall Of Fame, meanwhile, saw Jordan Luck, singer and songwriter for long-standing popular rockers The Exponents, become its first inductee.
A month later, it was the turn of The Mint Chicks to dominate proceedings at the Tuis, the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand's music awards. The Flying Nun-signed act's sophomore album Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No? delivered on all the promise of the group's manic early singles with a damaged pop sensibility and managed to sneak a hit single in there, too. It was a sweep of best group, best album and best rock album for the group, as well as the technical awards they collected earlier for the record's production - by guitarist Ruban Neilson and his father Chris - and its cover art - again, the work of Ruban Neilson.
The other major winner at the Tui Awards was singer Hollie Smith, who collected three awards for her debut, entitled Long Player. Smith has been signed by the Manhattan division of EMI's Blue Note label in the USA and her album, already a platinum seller at home, is set for worldwide release by the company in 2008.
The awards' finale celebrated 69-year-old Johnny Devlin, the Wanganui rock and roller who became the second inductee into the new Hall of Fame.
New Zealand's place on the international live circuit received a boost in 2007 with the arrival of the 12,000-capacity Vector Arena in Auckland. Already host to a number of major concerts from acts such as Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bob Dylan, Guns N' Roses, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, Crowded House and The Cure, the Vector has given promoters some much-needed encouragement to secure big acts that were bypassing the country because of a lack of a suitable venue in New Zealand's biggest city.
Once New Zealand's concertgoers attune themselves to the fact that listening to a band in an arena is not like hearing them on a home stereo - even if the view is sometimes like a 17-inch TV set - a rosy future for the Vector looks assured. Letters to the editor of the New Zealand Herald complaining about the acoustics and the queues at the venue's bar have already begun to tail off.
In general, the live music sector continues to be on the up, albeit with the constant opening and closing of venues in all centres becoming something bands and promoters have to contend with.
With the southern hemisphere summer just around the corner, Kiwis will be heading to the beach for their extended Christmas holidays and a string of popular pub touring acts have already booked and announced beach tours. Plenty of other laidback gentlefolk will be gathering at ever-popular coastal festivals like Rhythm & Vines and Parihaka Festival to smoke up the vibes and the sunshine. The biennial favourites Splore and Rippon both return as summer festival highlights in February 2008 alongside any number of reggae and dub-oriented events around the country.
Australasian heavyweight the Big Day Out still rules the festival scene, with its January 2008 line-up in Auckland boasting Rage Against The Machine, Bjork and Arcade Fire alongside a host of local name acts. A sell-out crowd of more than 40,000 is expected. The following weekend, more than 25,000 people will attend Parachute, the largest three-day contemporary Christian music festival in that part of the world and in March another huge audience will flock to Womad in Taranaki where 400 acts are scheduled to perform.
The quirkiest festival event on the local music calendar might just be February's Camp A Low Hum, a defiantly indie event in its second year that is so confident of its pulling power that it does not publicly announce a line-up before its four-day schedule of music camp festivities kick off.
An emerging part of the outdoor events market has been the use of some of New Zealand's many picturesque vineyards as concert settings and, in February 2008, there are two major tours going out to NZ's wineries. Brooke Fraser headlines one tour with Goldenhorse and Anika Moa, while Hayley Westenra and old hand Dave Dobbyn will cater to a slightly more sedentary but no less thirsty crowd when they share the stage at some of the nation's biggest vineyard venues.
Westenra, who signed to Decca after being discovered singing on Christchurch streets, has now sold more than 3.5m albums worldwide and has been joined on Universal UK's pop classical roster by another emerging Kiwi talent: 23-year-old Will Martin, tipped by many to be the pin-up boy of classical crossover with his highly-touted debut album set for global release in early 2008.
Of the many musical scenes thriving in this nation of 4m inhabitants, the loose affiliation of roots-based acts has become pre-eminent. Fat Freddy's Drop return with a new album in early 2008 and will be seen gigging at many of their regular summer festival haunts prior to its release. Waikato roots specialists Katchafire have had wide international success, reaching the top five of Billboard's US reggae chart and increasing their European touring base.
Salmonella Dub have just released a fine album, as has their former lead vocalist, the supremely talented Tiki Taane. However, the year has definitely belonged to Kora, a band based around tight vocal harmonies and a muscular twist of heavy rock and riddum. Koras' self-titled, independently-released album topped New Zealand's album charts on its release and marched straight to gold status.
New Zealand groups bending off that genre into more frenzied dancefloor- fuelling activity have been busy in 2007, with Shapeshifter, Concord Dawn, Minuit and North Shore Pony Club all making lengthy international sojourns throughout the year.
New Zealand's hard rock, metal and punk acts have had a comparatively quiet year, with scene lynchpins Blindspott breaking up after just two albums. However, 8 Foot Sativa continue their own merry way, with fourth album Poison Of Ages released in 2007. Hardcore rockers The Bleeders have finished their self-titled follow-up to last year's number two hit and multi-award-winning As Sweet As Sin. Meanwhile, the country's black leather-clad rockers are waiting with bated breath for news of a new Shihad album due in early 2008.
The Kiwi indie scene has long thrived on the back of Flying Nun and the label, now under the wing of new owner Warner Bros, continues to deliver great bands. The Mint Chicks' afore-mentioned record has turned them into one of the label's biggest sellers in its 25-year history. The Phoenix Foundation bring a blend of widescreen indie and a touch of prog to bear on the band's third album and first for the label Happy Ending while The Shocking Pinks have come from the Nun stable to be signed by DFA.
For longtime fans of the New Zealand guitar underground, Warner issued a Flying Nun boxed-set compiled by label founder Roger Shepherd, who has now made his way home after a decade in London. The 80-track, four-
CD set shows what a labour of love a great record label should be and will be an essential purchase for Flying Nun's many fans.
Dirty Records' Scribe returned last month with second album Rhymebook and, true to form, the undisputed heavyweight MC of the hip-hop scene down under headed straight into the Top 10 on both sides of the Tasman Sea, debuting at number nine in Australia and collecting a gold sales award with his number four placing in New Zealand. Elsewhere, it has proved a tough year for New Zealand hip-hop after a halcyon period. New MCs are on the rise, including Young Sid on the Move The Crowd label, but it has been a difficult time for previously high-flying label Dawn Raid, which was recently rescued from receivership - a sign of the generally difficult market conditions for the genre's local exponents.
News of a steady decline in physical sales in the New Zealand market will not shock anyone anywhere. Retailer The Warehouse is, and has been for several years, the largest CD outlet in the country. Established music chains Sounds, The CD Store and Real Groovy (the latter running perhaps the most successful business model of combining new and used CDs and vinyl at the core of its business as well as selling merchandise, including DVDs, books and clothing) have been joined in the market in 2007 by Australian chain JB Hi-Fi, whose four new stores in the Auckland region have given a boost to the local music market.
An iTunes store finally came online for New Zealanders in December 2006, joining digital market leader Digirama and local music specialist site Amplifier in attempting to bring the country's late-developing legal download market up to speed. The most successful digital initiatives, however, have come from telcos, with Vodafone and Telecom engaged in a battle for domination of the downloads-to-handset market and doing far healthier business than their computer-bound digital competitors.
Most music-related online activity is, unsurprisingly, based around social networking sites, with Bebo outdoing MySpace in school-age demos while Facebook emerged as the preferred office-space online timewaster of the year. As far as non-networking sites go, fans are catered for by a couple of decent mail-order services from Smokecds.com and Realgroovy.co.nz, while the community-based Nzmusic.com exists for those generally interested in local music, alongside Biggie.co.nz for the clubbing crowd and Cheeseontoast.co.nz, which caters for the net- active indie scene.
The 2006 arrival of MTV added to the music television market in New Zealand without becoming more than a small-time player in its first year on air. MTV was last seen in the market when its UK version was aired in the country as a network spoiler to local independent music channels a decade ago and it has faced stiff competition from the market leader, Mediaworks' free-to-air C4, as well as the long- established Juice and J2 brands. They have in turn been joined by Sky's Alt TV, a station that occasionally struggles to stay on air - in recent weeks it has been sin-binned a couple times and forced off air for five hours for breaches of broadcasting standards - but brings a colourful blend of music videos and presenters to its niche.
In the crowded local radio market, The Rock has emerged as the nation's highest-rating radio network, even beating longstanding talk radio network kings in the latest national book, which surely says something for New Zealanders' broadcasting tastes. The saturated pop and adult contemporary market is battled out between competing conglomerates Mediaworks and TRN. Interest and government money has been directed at new network Kiwi FM with its eclectic and exclusively New Zealand music playlist and its new Worldwide programme that plays midnight-to-dawn in New Zealand and afternoons in the UK, on www.kiwifm.co.nz .
Alternative radio remains the domain of the b.net (formerly student) radio stations and, in late November, the b.net stations host the last major awards ceremony of New Zealand's music year, with 19 award categories fought out by a number of bands.
If we look to their artist of the year finalists, there is a hint towards some local acts the wider world might be hearing about in the future - they are contested by Liam Finn, Cut Off Your Hands, The Brunettes, Bachelorette and Little Bushman. And, with a little luck, these acts will be eclipsing the fictional Conchords duo in the global limelight in 2008.
[/size][/quote]
Stephany