Basically its a list of 118 interesting and sometimes great albums by New Zealand musicians, covering a variety of genres, and covering the 1960's up to the late 2000's. Overall, most of the albums are from the 1980's forward. No doubt anyone who reads the book and follows the Kiwi music scene will have disagreements as to inclusions and omissions in the book. I would have preferred a book listing 218 albums. Overall, I think that he did a pretty fine job. If nothing else the book is gorgeous, with plenty of photos and album covers.
A labor of love.
I consider myself a bit of a enthusiast of music from New Zealand, but this book brought to light a lot of music I've never heard of, never listened to. So in one way, I got my ego deflated a bit (not the worst thing), but in another way the book got me excited about new artists and even new musical worlds I haven't ventured into yet.! I do the best I can considering I live on the complete opposite ends of the earth from New Zealand. I don't gush over every release that comes out from there. But I also find it pretty pretentious that artists doing terrific things don't get their due, and to a large extent because of their provenance. The reason for inclusion of artists, beyond being from New Zealand, is that they created something terrific, or at the very least very interesting or creative.
Smithies is a critic so the book is not a puff piece. And the author wisely includes contributions from numerous sources. There are pieces in the book by actors, musicians, jouralists, designers, poets, music industry executives, musicologists, describing albums that mean a lot to them. There are numerous anecdotes about bands, about seeing the groups perform in clubs.
There are some great pieces here on The Gordons, one of the loudest bands to ever walk the earth.
There are pieces on groups I am anxious to get albums of, like Fat Freddy's Drop, and Feelstyle. I just picked up a record by SJD who apparently is one of the most talented electronic artists in New Zealand. There is a lot on Shane Carter, Chris Knox, The 3D's, and other Flying Nun groups. There is a even a small section on Maori show bands and 60's garage groups, which was terribly interesting to me.
In the preface to the book, Smithies states that didn't really feel the need to include better known, popular artists, like Dave Dobbyn, Bic Runga, Crowded House, Mutton Birds. And I can understand this because this book was no doubt intended for home consumption (and a few musical freaks like myself). The reality is that there probably is no great international market for a book like this, which is too bad. But another reality is that while bands like the Mutton Birds might be a little better known today, surprisingly, they have never had any of their studio albums, much less a greatest hits compilation released in the U.S. As he says in his preface, he made some difficult choices when he was creating this book. But when you think about it, even taking the New Zealand market having some of these popular groups included in the book might have been a trojan horse of sorts. Somebody might pick the book up for Dave Dobbyn and wind up being turned on to Tama Waipara, Edmund Cake, Upper Hutt Posse, Humphreys and Keene, HDU or Coco Solid. Its no wonder why magazines like Mojo seem to have The Beatles and the Stones on their covers seemingly every other month--it's not usually because the bands are extra busy.
But for my own selfish purposes, I'm glad that he didn't do the complete kitchen sink approach when he put this collection together. There is a certain coherent musical integrity here rather playing musical politics. It really is a collection of people who love music sharing their favorite albums and memories with the world. Warm, funny, intelligent, enlightening. I really enjoyed this book a lot--I think Smithies has made a great musical contribution here. So if you love music I strongly recommend that you pick this book up. It was being sold at an affordable price on the Flying Nun Label. Shipping a book across so many time zones is usually a pretty expensive proposition. There is such a variety of music here that I can almost guarantee you will soon discover a few great new bands you might never have heard of otherwise.
