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Squeeze TV website
July 2002

Review of Beautiful Collision

Original article is at: www.squeezetv.co.nz

July 2002

By Jane

Bic Runga seemed slightly jaded when I spoke to her. She'd been doing a lot of interviews, and her foreseeable future involves a lot more of the same...

Promotion is something you'd think Bic would be used to. Afterall, her debut album went 7 times platinum, and she was touted again and again as the "next big thing". There was no shortage of promotion at the time, but this time around Bic seemed a little over it. Of course, this is me just reading into things.

'Beautiful Collision' has arrived five years after Bic's debut album, 'Drive'. She believes it is a more "mature" album (not meaning for old people, just that she's grown up) and I tend to agree with her. Bic tried all sorts of things with the album and confessed to feeling the pressure a bit, especially the pressure she'd placed on herself. At the end of the day though, she's come up with an album that she's happy with and she's not really fussed what anyone else thinks. Fair enough!

And now it's time for her to jump on the promotion wagon and start smiling for the cameras and saying all the right things to the interviewers. Speaking of which, after I spoke to her she told me she'd enjoyed the interview and that it felt like a conversation rather than being bombarded with questions. I was kinda stoked about that because I was feeling quite intimidated - not because Bic is scary, just because she's so... huge ya know? Maybe I was intimidated because she just didn't seem to be that excited about putting out a new album, when most of the artists I talk to are really enthusiastic...

About The Album:

'Beautiful Collision' is the second album from Bic Runga. It took her three years to put together following two years of touring and promoting her debut album 'Drive'. She set herself quite a task in following up 'Drive' which was is the biggest selling local record of all time in New Zealand (seven times platinum), won numerous Tui's at the New Zealand Music Awards, and also the APRA Silver Scroll Songwriting Award for the title track.

Bic spent some of the time putting together her new record experimenting with different styles of music. She was eager to incorporate some of the varied genres she was listening to, and at one point she had hopes of putting together a hip hop album. In the end, a few of the hip hop beats made it onto 'Beautiful Collision' as well as a splash of country and a hint of nostalgia influence.

Bic worked with numerous engineers and musicians on the album (including Ben King from Goldenhorse, Milan Borich from Pluto, Neil Finn, and sisters Boh and Pearl). She travelled from place to place with her laptop, and ended up in New York where the album was mixed by Michael Brauer who has worked with Coldplay and the New Radicals. Bic is pleased with the album and even though she has a seemingly endless stream of promotional stints ahead of her, she's already thinking about what she wants to do for her third album.