New Zealand Gold: An Anthology of New Zealand Pop.

Reviewed by Bob Fraser

EMI $4.99

When I first saw this album, I thought what a wonderful idea, to put those 20 big hits together so as people can look back on the beginnings of New Zealand's pop scene'. Now I've listened to the record. I'm not so sure. As with most of the anthology or period pieces going around at the moment there are several ommissions. Ray Columbus, Shona Laing and Split Enz are the three most important - Larry Morris another. Perhaps the record company money fuckers didn't like the idea. Pity.

More positively, the record does have a reasonable coverage in its 20 tracks - from Herma Keil's forgetable 'The Twist' through Allison Durbin 'I Have Loved Me a Man' (how attitudes needed to change!) to Space Waltz and 'Out on the Street'. The Formula's 'Nature' and Shane's 'Saint Paul' are two of the strong tracks, with the massively successful 'Pretty Girl' and 'Yesterday was Just the Beginning of My Life' running close follow ups.

Several tracks just should not have been included. Dinah Lee's 'Do the Blue Beat' could have well been replaced with one of the Chick s' singles, 'Say a Prayer' (Chapta),

Come to the Sabbat' and 'Tell Laura I Love Her'; by pretty well anything. Still, I suppose if the New Zealand public are going to buy crap an anthology of pop should record their choices. One further quibble is with 'Star Crossed Lovers' for Craig Scott - some of his later material would have been far better.

So, the idea wasn't too bad, but the selection leaves much to be desired (whether because of Rick White's taste or the intransigency of record companies I don t know). There's one more comment on the production - it would have been very helpful to have the dates of the tracks to work out the development of pop, and/or have them in chronological order. Leaving it up to the fast-fading memories of the buyers is a bit much.

Now some more general comments on how effectively the album conveys the changes in New Zealand pop. The lack of order hinders this, but the trends come fairly clearly. The production of the early tracks is bad (with the surprising exception of Maria Dallas's Tumbling Down'), and there has been a gradual improvement of this. There has also been a movement away from straight cover versions to more original material - although 'Nature' and 'Saint Paul' are early 70s leaps in this direction.

The comedy of 'Pretty Girl' and 'Miss September', along with the material of Blerta and Headband lead well to Space Waltz and Mark Williams. The cover versions are becoming more sophisticated and varied and the original talent never brighter. This trend is well documented - and the future looks good.

So its an interesting album for what it tries to do, but it isn't the best that could be hoped for. Certainly for this reviewer it revived some old memories (one or two of which were sleeping dogs) and provides a reasonable reference piece. If you're interested in a record of the times N.Z. pop has been through, its well worth the $4.99.