Posts by Simon Grigg
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I should note that I'm very strongly in favour of retaining MMP.
Same. NZ is one of the more perfect democracies in the world, with a tiny bit of sensible fine tuning being all that may be needed. God help us all if we go back to FPP or to the confusion of STV.
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I think that's a more or less unbeatable trump card.
Not completely
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This is why we really really needed punk rock.
Trust me, little improved after Punk. Thank Peter Urlich and Mark Phillips for the first real jump into the 20th Century around '81.
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My memory of the period is somewhat unreliable, but I think the Sisters of Mercy beat him to it.
and Strawberry Switchblade who had a minor hit if my, also unreliable, memory is correct, in the mid 80s
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They used to have all the glamour and excitement of a retailers' convention (which they virtually were, come to think of it).
I think we may have been at the same table (Rose, Shepherd, Hood, Sampson etc) at the Powerstation circa '91, when no food was served for two hours and Greg Johnson had to physically helped to the podium for his Best Single award (and bought the house down with his short speech).
It may have been chaos but it was a hell of a party and I think most retailers from down country left in some disbelief at the behaviour of the 'industry'. It was always a risk asking them to come to those things.
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Nope, that's called "getting old".
maybe, but I'd argue that the likes of P-Money and Scribe, which sell very much to middle NZ, as well as the edges, are far more interesting than the first 5 awards in this lot from 20 years back. And stations like Mai / Flava and the alternative indie / dance stations have pushed a lot of things into the mainstream that otherwise would have been ignored.
Mostly, give or take, and there is still a lot of shit, but NZ pop music, as perceived by much of the nation, has become a more fascinating and listenable place in the past decade or so. You only need to look at the two mega number ones this decade, Scribe & Smashproof.
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I think we tend to forget how dire these awards used to be ...
and how interesting and listenable parts of the middle have become in recent years
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So it's not like she's been a total nobody.
The sales were minimal though..it was a one week Christian buy and then, bam, gone. Which kinda makes my point.
Since two years ago, you mean?
No I mean forever, with the odd happy exception. Let's not forget the almost complete avoidance of almost anything Flying Nun in it's first decade. I think The Chills got a bump after Heavenly Pop Song. And the 1990s were little better.
But I understand that (not the Flying Nun bit or the direness of the old awards as you point out, but the targeting), as the awards, like NZ on Air, are meant to sell the thing that is NZ music to middle NZ..that's their role and they do it increasingly well, thanks largely to the vision of Mark Ashbridge and Adam Holt a few years back, and the momentum since.
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Ian, Discogs is a work in progress, essentially a developed wiki with developing submission procedures. It used to be that a member could enter a release and it remained hidden until approved by moderators (of which I was one). Of recent anything can be uploaded, is visible, and it's then voted on by the members which has inevitably meant it's now vastly less reliable as a database (the emphasis for the owner has changed from that of a database to that of a marketplace..$$$$$$ won the day).
For all that, it's still a mighty achievement. There are barebones requirements for a submission..basically artist / title / label / cat. number / tracks. The Ripper TT23 album is just that and hence the rest of the data relating to it, including Doug's involvement, remains to be added at some future stage. I can think of a couple of dozen things that Doug did which are not in there yet, some of which were on cassette only or were as engineer at Terry King's studio and so on.
I'd planned to add much of this but rather lost my mojo for it when the emphasis changed.
And canonisation..sadly unlikely to happen. The Hall of Fame Awards are more about the public aaawwwww factor than the real achievement, otherwise Phil Warren would've got the nod the with Devlin, and Eldred Stebbing with Ray & Invaders: not just the names but the people who made the names.
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The album is mostly electronic pop, the band is rock.
yes but it very much is not electronic in the spirit of the award, whereas the other two were. Hints of the year that Jethro Tull won Best Hard Rock/ Metal Album at The Grammys, when they were up against Metallica.
I don't have a problem with Paul's post, it kinda had to be said, but the awards have alway teetered towards the middle and I scratch my head at a compilation album being awarded biggest selling disc, as the norm is that these things ain't eligible.
Brooke Fraser international achievement? I'm wondering if management connections at the very highest level of RIANZ count for more than anyone actually having the vaguest notion who you are beyond a few youth church groups around the world? Bizarre. But the Tuis often are.