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The first week of NZ Music Month for 2022 is coming to an end… well, almost.

The commercial for Telecom (now Spark) was entitled Pass the Parcel and screened on New Zealand TV screens in 2003. It was where a posse of New Zealand artists, headed by hip hop artist Che Fu, collaborated to make a song. But who was in it?

The artists were spread throughout the country and around the world, e.g. Melbourne, New York and London.

Che Fu laid the foundations of the song before sending it in an email to Fur Patrol’s Julia Deans in Melbourne where she added a guitar riff before sending the musical parcel on to Auckland band The Brunettes, who added a glockenspiel track… and so it continued.

Adding their own distinctive touch to the music were - in order of appearance - Julia Deans (Fur Patrol), Jonathan & Heather (The Brunettes), Shelton Woolright (Blindspott), PanAm, Twinset, Anna Coddington (Handsome Geoffrey), Nathan Haines, Ami Maelie, Marcus Powell (Blindspott), DJ Furious, Fat Freddy’s Drop with DJ Mu & P-Money.

The resulting track was a whole range of musical styles which included reggae, hip hop, jazz pop and rock.

PS: By clicking the YouTube link above, the YouTube channel DigitaliseMe apologises for the poor audio quality within the video.

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775

Coal Makes me C*m by the chaser has entered the charts at 10

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776

I would like to round off the first week of NZ Music Month for 2022 with some trivia.

New Zealand band Dave and the Dynamos released “Life Begins at Forty” - a 1983 one-hit wonder novelty pop song. The single peaked at number one in the New Zealand charts, a position it held for three weeks in September 1983, and peaked at number 35 in Australia in November that year.

The song was originally performed by singer and songwriter Dave Luther’s folk pop group Hogsnort Rupert, as part of a skit involving an aging rock band. The song’s popularity saw the song released as a single with the group Dave and the Dynamos - which also consisted of Kevin Findlater and Bernie Reber - created to perform it.

Dave and the Dynamos released two further singles, “Can’t Spell Rhythm” and “Don’t Make Me the Last Thing on your Mind”, neither of which charted. The group were unable to maintain the popularity of their earlier single and were absorbed back into Hogsnort Rupert.

The song featured an elaborate music video, recorded at the Avalon Television Studios in Wellington, with multiple sets and a large cast.

Meanwhile, the late Prince Tui Teka recorded three variety shows for TVNZ (1983-84), appearing with The Yandall Sisters and wife Missy. He responded by singing his own version of “Life Begins at Forty” with references to the late Billy T James instead of Mick Jagger, according to the lyrics. The cover version was recorded live and included in “The Prince Tui Teka Show” album, which was originally released on vinyl by TVNZ Enterprises.

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The second week of NZ Music Month for 2022 concludes with a special treat.

The first Rockquest was held in 1988, and was organised by Christchurch radio station C93FM as a local event. Within the next year, school teachers Glenn Common and Pete Rainey formed Rockquest Promotions, which is now based in Nelson, and by 1990 had made Rockquest a national event, with five regional finals and a national final. In 1991, Smokefree became a major sponsor, and the name became the Smokefree Rockquest (SFRQ).

SFRQ is the only nationwide, live, all original, youth music event. Now into its third decade, SFRQ, according to Wikipedia, reaches audience numbers in excess of 24,000 every year. Its aim is to motivate young musicians to prove their musical ability and to encourage their peers to support original New Zealand music. Initially bands played covers, but very early in the evolution of the event (and running parallel with the evolution of music in New Zealand) there was a shift to original music.

Musical successes in SFRQ’s 34-year history include Arlo Mac, Park Rd, There’s A Tuesday, Midnight Youth, Opshop, Evermore, Ladyhawke, Minuit, Marina Davis, Jeremy Lawrence, Kids of 88, Die!Die!Die!, Pistol Youth, Bang!Bang!Eche!, Ivy Lies, Cairo Knife Fight, Cut Off Your Hands, Luke Thompson, the Datsuns, Zed, Brooke Fraser, Anika Moa, Anna Coddington, The Electric Confectionaires, Steriogram, Aaradhna, Spacifix, The Phoenix Foundation, The Feelers, The Black Seeds, Nesian Mystik, Bic Runga, The Checks, Julia Deans, Pine, King Kapisi, Kingston, The Fresh Prints, The Naked and Famous, Rival State, Autozamm, Taste Nasa, Kimbra, Elemeno P, Alien Weaponry and Joe’s Van.

Here’s a link courtesy of NZ On Screen. In 1993, TV3 (now Three) screened a special edition of “Infocus” which incorporated highlights of that year’s SFRQ national final from the St James Theatre in Wellington. The national final was won by Hallucian (from Selwyn College in Auckland).

Bands at the 1993 national final like Wooden Daisies from Pakuranga College rocked the plaid shirt, while True T’ru from Hastings Girls’ High kept things RnB with an En Vogue cover. Pink Floyd fans Blatant Composure were highly commended in the ‘Original Song’ category, and (14 minutes in) third placer Bic Runga showed the star quality that got duo Love Soup signed to Pagan Records.

The “Infocus” special, hosted by Robert Rakete (formerly of “CV”, “RTR Sounz!” and “RTR Countdown” at TVNZ before switching networks), was broadcast on TV3 at 4.30pm on the afternoon of Monday 4 October 1993.

779

Harry Styles released his new album last week and as a result, on the ARIA Singles Charts, there are 13 singles out of the top 15 singles which are Harry Styles tracks. Could be some sort of new record.

The curiois thing is, this was not repeated on the UK Singles Charts. While Harry Styles took out the top 3 positions, thrre are no othrr singles on the chart. Makes me wonder. Did the UK put a limit on the number of album tracks than can qualify on the singles chart.

I notice that Kendrick Lamar released a new album and he did a similar thing on the US Singles Charts with his tracks flooding it too. Meanwhile, on the UK charts, Kendrick Lamar also has only 3 tracks on the Singles Chart. Seems to confirm my theory.

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780

Yes.

i) A maximum of three singles within the Top 100 by the same artist will be chart eligible. These will be the
three most popular singles in a week based on combined sales and streams.

https://www.officialcharts.com/media/657559/official-uk-singles-chart-rules-jan-2020.pdf

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781

Thanks for that. It’s good that they did that. Something needed to be done. ARIA should adopt the same rules.

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782

I think NZ has a similar restriction now. 5 maybe?

783

I think it’s something most countries need to adapt. Streaming has broken the singles charts and there needs to be something put in place to try make it somewhat normal again.

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784

i wouldn’t say its’ “broken” - if anything its more reflective of what people are actually listening to, but there needs to be a limit on the number of tracks from one album on the charts.

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785

It is broken because listening to an album track is enough for it to boost its tally as a single.

I think the record companies should nominate songs as singles, as they did in the past with single releases. Then there should be at least a three week break befote thry can nominate the next single.

So in the case of Harry Styles, he had a single released a few weeks ago which has been at the top of the charts. With his album release now, they should have nominated the next single. Then in three weeks time, they can nominate the next “single”. This would also give the artist’s albums and singles some longevity in the charts.

Right now, a lot if album tracks flood the top 50 chart in the first week but then in the following weeks, they disappear.

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I see where you’re coming from but that is not how music is consumed any more. Why would you force companies to wait to ‘nominate’ a single if people are already listening to it.

The 3-cap probably seems like the best way of doing things. The weekly charts were a system to reflect the top songs in the land across a week - in a era where you can get daily charts on Spotify, perhaps they’ve had their day.

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Well, allowing three tracks is odd too. Maybe they should just get rid of the singles charts. Or maybe split the streaming chart away from single sales.

788

Oh yeah, it’s all odd. I think trying to shoehorn a new way (streaming) of listening into the old way of charts is always gonna be fraught with danger.

789

Probably makes more sense to split the charts so there is a streaming specific one and the traditional singles chart. Though I think if they did so that the traditional singles chart would more or less be dead given you can’t buy singles on CD anymore and I would assume the amount of people buying digital singles from iTunes is vastly smaller than it was a decade ago.

790

I decided to look and see if Billboard has a specific chart for streaming and it turns out they do but its clear there aren’t any restrictions put in place given that 8 of the top 13 songs are by Kendrick Lamar.

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His album which debuted at #1 sold 39,486 copies made up of 19,279 cd’s, 8508 vinyl, 3122 digital and 8577 streaming sales. Mind boggling figures in the current music climate

792

There was a segment on The Big Fat Quiz this year (SBS) a I was surprised that Ed Sheeran had a lot more weeks at number one in the UK charts than Elton John. I suppose I was thinking of total sales.

793

Surprised that it sold more on CD than Vinyl given Vinyl seems to be where people are gravitating towards if they want to buy music on a physical format. But then again JB Hi-Fi has the CD at $19.99 as opposed to $84.99 for the Vinyl.

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The 1980s song “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” by Kate Bush is number 2 on the Australian Singles Chart this week after it was used in season 4 of “Stranger Things”.

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