News

The following article appeared in the New Zealand Herald, February 17, 2001.

Tui's song the best for years

17.02.2001 This year's annual music awards come after a top year for local music, says GRAHAM REID

Any way you slice, dice, sample or remix it, last year was one of the best for New Zealand music in a long time. You can put that on the record. In fact many did.

The trickle-down of electronica and dance was evident in albums from Pitch Black, Strawpeople, Phase 5 and many others. Pacific hip-hop was everywhere (notably long-awaited albums from King Kapisi and DLT).

What we might call the old guard remained serious contenders for attention (Greg Johnson, Dave Dobbyn, the Together Again tour of Dobbyn, Tim Finn and young
guard Bic Runga), and those noisy young people with guitars bounced back after a fallow period.

Any year which has pop-rock albums by the likes of Breathe, Eye TV, Fur Patrol, Mary, Tadpole, Zed and many others has got to be counted as a good one.

And Paul Holmes slipped a disc, too, for which we can only offer our condolences. So much music out of such a small country.

And that makes this year's annual music awards run by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (Rianz) the focus of considerable attention.

To be held at the Civic Theatre on Friday March 2 - with live performances by Fur Patrol, betchadupa, Che-Fu, Zed, Salmonella Dub, Tadpole and Dave Dobbyn - the night promises to be one of the most exciting in recent memory. Hosted by Dominic Bowden and Jaquie Brown from Space, eight of the major awards will be presented. The remainder will be presented at a swept-up awards and dinner show at the Sheraton ($135 gets you into both Civic and Sheraton functions).

And for those who can't make it to the modestly priced Civic event ($20 seems a snip), it is being recorded for broadcast on Space at 10.30 pm that same night.

Rianz has released the names of the finalists in the 21 categories for what are known as the Tui Awards, and that which has proven popular with record buyers has also proven popular with the judging panel. Pop has popped up again.

Fur Patrol are shortlisted in four categories: single of the year, album of the year, top female vocalist and songwriter of the year. Tadpole have been nominated in single of the year, album of the year, top female vocalist and top group. Zed have five nominations: single, album, top male vocalist, top group and songwriter of the year.

Dave Dobbyn's name appears in album of the year twice (for his own Hopetown and the Together in Concert live album with Finn and Runga) and also in the top male
vocalist category.

Shihad, who didn't release an album in 2000, proved again the high regard in which they are held and made it into the finals of three categories (single of the year for Pacifier, top group and international achievement) and frontman Jon Toogood is nominated again in the top male vocalist category, which he won last year.

Come Friday March 2, some of the people listed below will make that phone call home to say, "Mum, the Tui has landed."