Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Showdown today for the leadership of National, climate change commissioner lashes budget failings, and Fonterra picks up earnings amid uncertainty. It’s all going down in the National caucus today, and we’ll see later on who will emerge victorious. The party again suffered a very poor polling … Read more
In the fifth episode of Actually Interesting, The Spinoff’s monthly podcast exploring the effect Artificial Intelligence has on our lives, Russell Brown discovers that maybe AI has better musical taste than humans. Subscribe to Actually Interesting via iTunes or listen on the player below. To download this episode right click and save. I am a middle-aged man and suddenly my … Read more
Where do we watch content, what do we want from it, and how do we view New Zealand news? Here’s what we learned from NZ On Air’s latest survey on identity, culture and the media. We still like to watch free-to-view TV Despite the lingering doom and gloom around linear television, almost three-quarters of respondents … Read more
After years of watching its income dwindle as it transitioned into the digital age the New Zealand music industry has turned a significant corner. Recorded Music New Zealand CEO Damian Vaughan is cock-a-hoop that the wallets of the artists and labels he represents are looking a lot fatter. The doom and gloom that had hung … Read more
There’s been a decades-long campaign to get a quota of New Zealand music on radio, but radio is no longer where a lot of us hear new music. Gareth Shute investigates whether the same pressure should be applied to streaming playlists. In 1989, the music played by New Zealand radio stations included less than 2% … Read more
Gareth Shute digs around to create a best-of-2018 music list with one criterion: the tracks all have less than 1000 streams on Spotify. One cruel thing about online music services like Spotify is that they instantly put a number next to every track, which is intended as a sign of its popularity. Particularly cruel is … Read more
Though most Kiwi artists who rack up big numbers on Spotify are chart-topping stars, some remain stubbornly unknown. Gareth Shute investigates the odd paths NZ acts have taken to get to a million Spotify streams. In a small country like New Zealand it’s difficult to get to a million streams on Spotify unless you’re a … Read more
In 2000, Fur Patrol dominated the New Zealand singles chart with ‘Lydia’, a song that merely a year later would be voted the 19th best New Zealand song of all time. And finally, 18 years later, ‘Lydia’ is streaming on Spotify. Tom Augustine pays tribute to a New Zealand classic. Some of the songs that … Read more
Gareth Shute crunches the numbers on who is the most streamed here and abroad – and asks why the two don’t always match. Until recently, it was difficult to track the progress of New Zealand bands once they left our shores. But now Spotify’s publicly available streaming data gives us a window into how well … Read more
This morning the Spotify-subscribing world woke up to Spotify’s annual ‘your year in review’ package, including a personalised top 100 played songs of the year. Here are music editor Henry Oliver’s top 10 (plus a few more). 1. Aldous Harding – ‘Horizon’ No surprise here. This song cuts deep. For reasons I won’t go into … Read more
The Spinoff vs Spotify. Narrative vs Data. Heart vs Head. Who can predict more winners of tonight’s New Zealand Music Awards – The Spinoff’s Henry Oliver or Spotify’s team of (probably) Stanford-educated computer-geniuses? A year ago, I proclaimed myself New Zealand music’s Nate Silver and made (not) data-driven predictions about the outcomes of the 2016 … Read more
The Spinoff and Spark proudly present Pod On The Couch, a weekly podcast exploring music and the people that make it. This episode: Henry Oliver talks to Baynk about how to get your song streamed 8 million times. Spinoff Music editor Henry Oliver asks to Baynk about how, as an unsigned artist with just a handful of … Read more
Last week, after seeing her first four singles rack up a combined 9 million plays on Spotify, Christchurch’s Theia released her first EP. She spoke to Henry Oliver on the eve of her first New Zealand tour. New Zealand pop acts just seem to appear out of nowhere these days. It’s not uncommon for someone … Read more
Pandora – not the charm bracelets – has officially announced it’s the end of the line for their service in Australia and New Zealand, reports Don Rowe. After five years hard graft in the Australia/New Zealand market, Pandora is calling it quits. “While our experience in these markets reinforces the broader global opportunity long-term, in … Read more
There’s a perfect playlist out there for every scenario. Chances are the Spinoff staff playlists won’t be among them but we gave it a go anyway. Today: Calum Henderson details his very specific playlist for a rain delay at the cricket. Top 10 Rainy Day Songs I’ve always dreamed of being a DJ at the cricket. My … Read more