Top 10 Kiwi Albums

Ask say 100 Kiwi Music fans to name their Top Ten Albums and you’ll get 100 different lists.


As the great bard once said: “Opinions are like arseholes, everyone’s got one”.

With such lists they’ll always be a divergence of entries, reflecting the demographics, race, social structures, music of that time etc.

Peoples taste also change although for the most part we are ‘slaves’ to the music we listened to in our teens.

New artists come on the scene and replace what was once considered ‘treasured material’. Your favourite album from your teens is likely to now be buried in the back of your collection. Playing it 20 years on is likely to produce more nostalgic warm-fuzzies than adulation.

Everyone also is has bias, whether they advertise the fact or not.

This bias is referred to in sugar-coated terms as ‘taste’.

Thus we hide behind ‘taste’ when in reality we are simply covering-up our innate bias.

I for example have an unashamedly love of alternative Indy music – thus my list comes minus any submissions of ‘the hip-hop kind’.

Objectivity is never a part of any individuals own choice in music. Each of us is presumptuous enough to declare our own list ‘better’ for reasons which we justify on the same indignant tones as someone else defending their choices.

On seeing someone’s else’s opposing list we’ll automatically and defiantly state “how the hell could you miss [insert your album]!”. Let’s take this as read.

Hey, that’s the great thing about music and of course there is no ‘Official Top Albums’ and never can be. ‘Rip It Up’ comprised a Top 100 Albums in their December 2001 issue, drawing opinions for rock music aficionados and muso’s alike(39 odd of these are in my own collection in one form or another).

Annually, December signals the time in which musical scribes pick their Top Albums of the Year. So they’ll always be such lists and ensuing arguments as to their merits.


My Top Ten Kiwi Albums is what it is.

MY Top Ten.

No justification or elaborations necessary.

That’s after all, the very nature of a blog!

SPLIT ENZ – MENTAL NOTES

KING LOSER – CAUL OF THE OUTLAW

ABLE TASMANS – NICE CUPPA TEA & LIE DOWN

PINE – LONG PLAYER

THE CLEAN – TALLY HO

THE TERMINALS – LAST DAYS OF THE SUN

SKEPTICS – SENSIBLE SHOES

SUBLIMINALS – UNITED STATE

FETUS PRODUCTIONS – FETAL MANIA

BLAM BLAM BLAM – LUXURY LENGTH

Have fun making your own.