It’s Like Summertime
by Bic Runga
Nine years after her 2016 covers album Close Your Eyes, which followed her last original set, 2011’s Belle, Bic Runga returns with the first single from Paris-recorded album Red Sunset due out in the New Year. Co-written and co-produced with partner Kody Nielson, it’s a reflective, sweetly nostalgic mix of the Runga pop of old, complete with Bacharach-esque chords with space-age bachelor pad electronic touches. A very nice song and a blessed relief in a pop world of Taylor Swift – there’s a new album, have you heard? – and KPop Demon Hunters. – Russell Baillie
Don’t Leave the Light On
by Mel Parsons
There’s something both quietly gut-wrenching about this song by the Christchurch singer-songwriter, in which the lyrics are addressed to an ex, and something equally compelling in the story it tells. It may remind of the sort of domestic vignettes that have been stock in trade for Don McGlashan or Paul Kelly and it’s just as good. Here’s what Parsons has to say about her disarmingly frank song. “This is the first time I’ve spoken so explicitly about being in an abusive relationship - not of physical violence, but of insidiously controlling, belittling, gaslighting and pervasively negative behaviour.“I don’t usually discuss publicly what specific songs are about, but now it feels like enough time has passed that I am able to. Honestly, I’d rather just sing my songs, but I am speaking up in case my story reaches someone who sees themselves in me and who needs to hear it.”
The Body Keeps the Score
by Paul Kelly
And talking of Kelly, one slight pity of his recent run through New Zealand is that his new album Seventy isn’t out until November and had it come out earlier, it would have been a short dash to the merchandise stand. By the sounds of its song titles and that significant birthday of a title, there’s some mortality contemplation among the tracks. Especially this one, with its unsettling, regretful lyric about past habits catching up on one in old age. One for your waiting room playlists. – Russell Baillie
Sad and Beautiful World
by Mavis Staples
The previous single in advance of the great Mavis Staples’ new album was a beautiful and moving interpretation of Kevin Morby’s Beautiful Strangers which is heart-stopping in these days of gun crime and ICE raids in the USA. Here with the title track of the album (due November 7) the 86-year old gospel-soul singer again offers restraint as she laments these straitened times in a lyric by the late Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse. It’s one of those songs where the mood and the spare lyrics say so much more. The album – which also includes Frank Ocean’s spiritual letting-go on Godspeed – is already shaping up to be one of the year’s best. – Graham Reid
Always on My Mind
by Chrissie Hynde and Rufus Wainwright
Fresh from doing vocal duties on a Ron Wood solo set (see previous edition of Songs of the Week) Chrissie Hynde has an imminent duets cover version album, featuring a very interesting guest list and thankfully no UB40-assisted raids on the Sonny and Cher songbook. Early singles include Hynde and k.d. lang on Me & Mrs Jones, and this take on the song made famous by Elvis Presley, Willie Nelson and the Pet Shop Boys, among others. Here, Rufus Wainwright brings out his big theatrical voice, but Hynde brings him back to earth, nicely. - Russell Baillie
Where is My Husband!
by Raye
Jazz-soul-pop singer Raye – Rachel Keen – is a big deal in the UK having swept the 2024 Brits with debut album My 21St Century Blues which was also nominated for the Mercury Prize. She’s now on her way to her sophomore album due out next year. And she may be a solo star but this track – which pretty much tore the roof off The Graham Norton Show the other night – has big Destiny’s Child/En Vogue energy to it, plus brassy echoes of Beyonce’s early solo hit Crazy in Love. – Russell Baillie
Underwater
by Benee
Benee’s third single for forthcoming third album may not quite exude her personality quite as much as its predecessors but it’s a big warm bath of high-melody electropop that does some nifty things with production-wise suggesting that her voice is down the deep end of the pool. – Russell Baillie
Suckerpunch
by Foley
Light, bright and airy despite lyrics which speak of being unexpectedly dumped and trying to come out the other side to go through it all again. This is both classic and modern pop from the Auckland duo in that it delivers all that is required (memorable music, good hooks and lyrics, a chorus) and gets out of the way in fewer than three minutes. Clever clip which sells the idea of a karaoke hit. – Graham Reid
you’re a star
by Fred Again…, Amyl and The Sniffers
The superstar DJ-Oz punk, crossover of the week is this remix by Mr Frederick John Philip Gibson of the band’s Big Dreams into something that re-styles the bogan ballad into something that will have nightclub bouncers waving it past the velvet rope. A nice addition to Fred’s ongoing USB project and A&THS’s Amy Taylor gets to go for a long walk on the beach in the video below. –Russell Baillie
The Luck
by Harry Charles
Always handy to learn that a piece of music is focused and fit for purpose, and this driving piece of electronica by local guy Charles is directed at the summer festival season and honed to light up dancefloors. That’s what they say anyway. But you can take that to the bank because it comes in a radio-friendly edit and the full-blown seven minute-plus crowd-pleasing bounce-bounce. Charles got away an excellent and diverse album Movement earlier this year (beats, ambience, rap folktronica and more) but this time out he is, as we say these days, “laser focused.” Impressive and we link to full version because it’s an attention-keeping blinder that gets very big. – Graham Reid
Second Best
by The Last Dinner Party
The playfully gothic London art-rock band with the all-women frontline head to sophomore album From the Pyre this month with new single Second Best, which follows earlier tracks This Is the Killer Speaking and The Scythe both of which suggested Abba caught up in a Hammer Horror. The new track is more a Siouxsie and the Banshees post-punk energetic stomper with a touch of Kate Bush around its frilly edges. – Russell Baillie
Poor Mum
by Nadia Reid
Having covered Nick Drake’s Poor Boy on the 2023 tribute album The Endless Coloured Ways, UK-based NZ singer-songwriter Nadia Reid extends her time in the Drake family attic with this cover of Poor Mum originally by Molly Drake, Nick’s poet mother and now a posthumous cult figure in her own right. A home recording of Molly Drake singing the song was including in a 2007 compilation of Drake 1960s family home recordings, Family Tree. Reid’s version drags in into the 21st century quite elegantly. – Russell Baillie
Victory City
by Bright Eyes
Yes, Taylor Swift may have just released a song devoted to Elizabeth Taylor, but the best name-drops this week come from this track by American indie veteran Conor Oberst and his band. “Going to be cheerful like Salman Rushdie” he starts, his song taking the title of one of the author’s books. Candice Bergen and Joe Strummer also get namechecked along the way. It’s the last track on a new Bright Eyes EP entitled Kids Table. – Russell Baillie
Scared Old Men
by Dick Move
Auckland rowdies deliver another well-argued opinion piece in the form of a punk sprint that might be best summed up as: “Oh, patriarchy, up yours!” – Russell Baillie
