Vampire Weekend were formed by students at Columbia University. Frontman Ezra Koenig named the project after a vampire movie he started making in college. The group were interested in African music and punk rock, influences that are clear on their…
Every New Zealand #1 single… 3 Paloma Blanca by George Baker Selection Topped the NZ chart: from 1 August 1975 for five non-consecutive weeks Dutch musician George Baker scored hits in three different decades. 1969’s ‘Little Green Bag’ is an…
You probably know the drill by now – match the artist to the greatest hits album. I found this week’s selection the easiest for a while, scoring 18 Guessing between Mis-Teeq and Eternal felt like a coin toss, though.…
Before he became Patti Smith’s lead guitarist, Lenny Kaye compiled the 2 album set, Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era. Released in 1972, the two-LP set covered American garage rock and psychedelia from the years 1965-1968 and was…
In 2021, I assembled a list of my ten favourite Billy Joel songs. It included big hits and deep cuts, taken from his 1976-1983 prime. There’s been a lot of Billy Joel discussion in my household recently. My nine-year-old daughter’s…
It’s ANZAC Day here in New Zealand, where we remember the Gallipoli campaign, a disastrous attack on a Turkish peninsula during World War 1. It also would have been my dad’s 80th birthday – he was born during World War…
Milwaukee-born Julia Holter bridges musical worlds. She is classically trained and merges avant-garde ideas with electronic sounds and indie chamber pop. Impressively, she played all the instruments and self-produced her early albums. Holter is Influenced by esoteric musicians like Alice…
Every New Zealand #1 single… 8 Is It Over Now? Topped the NZ chart: from 6 November 2023 for 1 week It’s a little perverse for the randomiser to suggest a Taylor Swift song for this column when she’s just…
Welcome back for another week of quizzing! This week we have yet another collection of greatest hits albums. I scored 5(!) out of 20. I found all the hard rock acts hard to differentiate. Thin Lizzy and Zappa were…
The jangly guitar rock of Ducks Ltd are back for their second record. So is the ultra-sincere Atlanta-born singer-songwriter Katie Pruitt. I was in from the ground floor with both of those acts, but I’m only catching up with Marika…
