Best New Zealand Album

Oh I should have put a few 'The's' in there.

not the bailter space album i would have included tbh

i would never vote for anything other than bird-dog

^^^ what I went with, though I considered the Dead C and Terminals.

Gonna see the Verlaines next month! Even if I gotta pay tons of buck cause they're opening for Stephen Malkmus.

i would never vote for anything other than bird-dog

― king boy pamito (electricsound), Wednesday, 26 August 2009 07:14 (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

cosign.

also had the Gordon's been "1st album & future shock EP" then...

now i don't know.

Can I ask a Moderator to push back the closing date of this poll by a couple of weeks? Should probably let this one run a bit longer but I can't seem to edit this myself.

there's no way to do so, sorry

I realize the Jefferies Bros. are there in a couple of guises, but so long as we're including compilation albums Nocturnal Projections' Nerve Ends in Power Lines should be there. And I'd vote for it if it were.

skeptics III should've been on there. in it's absence i would maybe go for TKOP's 'beard of bees'. 'hail' was the most influential on me when i was seventeen, eighteen. (incidentally, some real gems were left off the US version of
this: 'telling tales', 'dead heat', 'only you knew'...). i love a lot of the others too.

True and fair. I did have a nominations thread for this sort of thing though.

the missing: Plagal Grind, Dadamah, Omit, Ohm.

voting Gordons, predict Clean Comp for the rout

Would have voted for Kilour's Here Come The Cars over Clean's Compilation by the tiniest of margins. Went with what was available.

Never really liked the Verlaines for some reason.

I've always loved the Verlaines Juvenilia so I suppose it's about time I checked out Bird Dog. I don't know enough of these to vote. Also seems a little bit reductive, but whatever.

I'm going with Vehicle by The Clean. Hooray for me.

voted for "Hallelujah All the Way Home". Might have voted for "Brave Words" if I could have.

i really wish i knew all these albums well enough to vote!

love Vehicle, but today voting the Chills - KW

To address comments about this poll being 'reductive' and other stuff not there. I'm not sure if I understand exactly what this means but if it means that all the stuff comes from one long lineage all linked etc well perhaps but I did try to include some modern stuff, some hip hop, electronicy stuff as well as all the usual white boys play guitar pop , drone which NZ happens to do bloody well. Perhaps that is part of the NZ character- reductive- I mean. Does this make any sense? No.

if you're gonna put a compilation on there it should have been 'xpressway pileup' or 'tuatara' and not ak-79. only thing interesting about ak-79 is hearing brendan perry do green day about 15 years before green day.
pumice?- don't know. the clean?- i've decided i don't much like them any more because instead of stopping they keep releasing bad records. look blue go purple - awesome. dead c-godawful. gordons-i like bailter space more. sticky filth-don't know. terminals-this album is fantastic, 'in and out of my mind' is just insane. bachelorette- no idea. pnc-no idea. birchville-no idea. axemen-never got the joke. coco solid-??? bats-this is an all time classic. snapper-of course this album was a disappointment but that's the story of peter gutteridge's life. aesthetics-no idea. alastair galbraith-unbelievable album, my favorite of his. crowded house-meh. split enz-meh. chills - kaleidoscope world is the world beater, submarine bells I've never liked as much as everyone else. scorched earth/tourettes-?. 3ds-both of these albums are great. nudie suits-i like the nudie suits. skeptics-i have the box set, i prefer the gordons/bailter space but that affco video is something to see. puddle-ah the puddle are crap, apart from a couple of singles. peter jefferies-great, too bad he married jean smith and turned to crap. bilders-the best of those comilations. able tasmans-my least fave album from my fave nz band, still pretty great but they got so much better. proud-? ak-79-should have included the wyld things compilations instead. mint chicks-from when nobody cared about flying nun any more, or at least after i stopped caring. sjd-? bressa creeting cake-last interesting record flying nun released, i quite like it. toy love-meh. bailter space-vortura is their best one, right? tall dwarfs-i would have chosen 3eps or fork songs. chris knox-my fave chris knox record. tkop-my fave tkop record, totally brilliant, best 4-track recording ever? verlaines-hallelujah is my fave, bird dog is also amazing. sjfits-melt and hail have andrew brough so they are great, shayne carter didn't know what to do once he left. sad that they didn't realize that at the time. dimmer-silly. smashproof-dunno. crude-he was releasing a million songs a week for a time there, none of them were any good.

where's cloudboy? i choose 'morse' .

you may like bachelorette if you heard them, i think they're great, but i don't understand your taste enough to recommend them to you.

i only know the popular faves. never heard bachelorette. i'll find them somewhere.

wow, she's fantastic. thanks.

cool!

yes. wyld things defintely. forgot about that. which do you think is the best able tasmans record. I don't think i have heard them all. just cuppa tea and shape of dolls ep and maybe one other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjEk2IWMnb8

I like able tasmans 'somebody ate my planet' best but i think everyone else thinks 'hey spinner!' is the best. you can't go wrong with either, they became much more polished than on 'a cuppa...'. the humphreys & keen record is also fantastic.

I have no idea who to vote for. This was the music of my high school years, I agree with whoever upthread said about Here Comes The Cars. Things left off, I would've voted for: The Great Unwashed, The Renderers, Shrew'd A Compilation of NZ Women's Music or Xpressway Pile=Up. Hey Spinner is the besy Able Tasmans album, if only for 'Wednesday (She's Coming Around.) I think Look Blue Go Purple might get my vote. I have listened to that record on repeat for so many nights. But This Kind Of Punishment......

Forksongs by Tall Dwarfs is much better that Weeville, or even 3Eps. Then again I haven't listened to Tall Dwarfs in awhile.

really like Harsh 70's Reality

If the Gordons are on the list, I'm not even looking at the other options.

If the Enz album Time and Tide had been there, it would have had a good shot at my vote!

Ak 79, for those of us in NZ I think it's probably the most important album. Certainly most of these other records would not have existed without it. The other compilation that matter and probably inspired countless people to pick up a guitar was Bigger Than Both of Us http://www.simongrigg.info/Bigger.htm

Wow. While I can't gripe about anything on that list (exception: Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No!), it certainly represents a very particular view of NZ music. I think this is what Nature's Best would have looked like if only 30-something rockists had been allowed to vote. And it would have been better for it!

Being too young to have been weened on the Dunedin Sound, I think that there are some notable omissions from the 90s. And the choices from the '00s seems a little odd. Coco Solid is great but isn't The Radical Bad Attack a bit too disposable to be one of the greatest 50 NZ albums?

I'm suprised that there's no Shihad (Killjoy? The General Electric?) and nothing from other genres I associate with New Zealand. No drum and bass (Pitch Black's Futureproof? Concord Dawn's Uprising?) and nothing from that Wellington roots/"dub" sound (perhaps Rhombus' Bass Player?).

Oh yeah, the Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No! thing.

I find it quite painful to listen to. Fuck The Golden Youth and the two early EPs have this frenetic energy, rough production and willingness to just try stuff that is just like the live shows from back then. The pop sound of Crazy Yes Dumb No leaves nowhere for their limited songwriting ability to hide.

If Fuck The Golden Youth was on the list, I might have voted for it. Even though I remember being disappointed by that when it came. The EP tracks that were rerecorded for the album all seemed worse than the original versions.

i come and go with the mint chicks. i like the two eps, but the album was pretty disappointing tbh

i'm happy at the general lack of interest in the shocking pinks. they are probably both dfa's *and* flying nun's most worthless signings..

Oh yeah, the Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No! thing.

I find it quite painful to listen to.

Wow, that album is full of 'frenetic energy'. Yes, they did corral it a bit but it still shines through. Their new album has smoothed out their edges even more and is a bit of a grower. I can understand your being put off them moving in a different direction but 'painful' is not what comes to mind when listening to the Mint Chicks.

Anyway - "Kaleidoscope World" for the win. It was my gateway drug to all things NZ.

the axemen - three virgins! for christs sake! & the new(ish) puddle "shakespeare monkey" is maybe his/their greatest. tourettes - yeah the only hip hop record on here should be by a white person, thats entirely appropriate (transl. : you are racists)...he's good tho. conflict-of-interest mentions : "BEATLE!" by space dust & "every garden grows one" by bro love & too bad there isnt a whole decent king loser album

hi duane!

hi, who are you?

some random australian

(esoj)

oh hi. ha ha this is like when you accidentally catch some of coronation st & you last watched it in 1980something & you dont know who anyone is

smashproof, proud (trans: you are a reactonary)

fair call on spacedust and bro love.

just to repeat i did have a noms thread. i forgot some things. other things i had not heard. i apologise profusely.. maybe you could do a rival one and the polls could battle. a poll of polls.

yeah thats ok it was a joke (transl: cop out)

oh yeah & people should hear "bad ass" by hyphen-smythe (has anyone?)
the last aesthetics alb. "ugly ambition" is good as hell & comes w/ a bonus xtra cd of even better shit

That Hyphen Smythe sounds v.intriguing. read the piece on mysterx...but no luck finding any to listen to.

'painful' is not what comes to mind when listening to the Mint Chicks
Fair enough, 'painful' was overstating things somewhat. Can I go with 'disappointing' instead?

yeah the only hip hop record on here should be by a white person, thats entirely appropriate (transl. : you are racists)
Rascist is a strong word, but it's a fair point. King Kapisi and Che Fu are notable for their absence.

And where is Fireworks by HDU? If I could have chosen any NZ album, I think I would have chosen that one.

Geez that Duane is a troublemaker. As I pointed out just previously with Proud comp and Smashproof there are non white hip hop records there. Sure call them token but personally I like them more than Che Fu and Kapisi and on this site its not going to be a hip hop record that wins anyway. Seriously though, apart from LBGP and Bachelorette records the 'female voice' does seem to be misrepresented. Who else could have gone here. I would have put Haunted love and maybe Gladeyes here but they don't have music in long form out. Emma Paki? Jay Clarkson? Mink? What does this mean?

Oh HDU. Pink Floyd of Angst.

ha ha good one 'cept arent the real p-floyd that anyway, yes they are it wuz a rhetorical qn.
hey america! somethin pretty exciting, look : http://theaxemen.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/axemen-us-tour-w-times-new-viking/

That would be a fun night out- Axemen and Times New Viking. Audience won't know what has hit em.

Or they might. If they read the ticket.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

saw Die Die Die! last night and they're really good! am seeing them tomorrow too

meant to vote submarine bells, not kaleidoscope world, but BIG thanks to the person recommending time & tide (split enz) upthread - just scored a copy and it's a druler!!!

I hope that's a good thing!

I certainly like True Colours but there's something about Time and Tide that really connected with me, FAR beyond the Big Hit Single - it just seemed to me like they were really on their game for that album.

(And I ultimately went for Submarine Bells.)

I can't decide between Terminals, 3ds or the Clean. Also Crude or Axemen. Really. Polls are dumb.

Kaleidoscope World MUST win this!

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

It did win, but I'm inspired to check out some of the runner-ups. Listening to Birchville Cat Motel samples on Amazon, it's the XPressway side of NZ music, which only occasionally grabbed me.

Birchville is v droney abstract type stuff. Most of the other stuff is more trad (and non song trad) 'song based' stuff. Except for the Dead C I suppose too.

I forgot to vote.