December 21 2004

If you think 2004 was a really big year for New Zealand music, you're right.

The Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ) has just released sales data for the year to December 5 and Kiwi artists once again top both the album and singles charts.

The country's biggest selling album has been Brooke Fraser's What to do with Daylight while New Zealand Idol winner Ben Lummis tops the singles sales with They Can't Take That Away.

Altogether New Zealand artists produced seven of the top 20 singles and eight of the top 20 albums during 2004. Crusader, the album by 2004 Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards multiple winner Scribe, was the year's 11th best selling disc.

Our musicians also did well on radio.

RadioScope - which gathers record play data from stations throughout the country - reports the most played New Zealand track during the year was Brooke Fraser's Arithmetic at number five. American rock group Alien Ant Farm's Glow was the most played track on New Zealand radio.

There were five Kiwi tracks in the top 20 radio plays.

In 2003 Bic Runga's album Beautiful Collision took the number one place on the annual album sales chart, while Stand Up by Scribe topped the singles chart.

RIANZ spokesperson Adam Holt says the New Zealand music industry will continue to dominate.

"Locally made music captures strong support from the New Zealand public and with artists continually producing incredible music this is unlikely to change..

"There is no doubt New Zealand artists will dominate both the weekly and annual charts from now on," says Mr Holt.

RadioScope's Paul Kennedy says radio programmers seem to have at thing for Brooke Fraser.

"Brooke has three tracks in the top 14 so she has definitely captured the hearts of the programmers," Kennedy says. "The other notable feature of this year's play-lists is the huge popularity of hip hop which has definitely broken out of a single genre category. Almost every mainstream station in the country has been playing the likes of Scribe, Adeaze and Misfits of Science.

"There's no doubt it's been one of the biggest years ever for Kiwi music on radio."

Altogether there were 23 New Zealand albums and 16 Kiwi singles in the top selling 100 lists. Twenty-one New Zealand tracks are in the top 100 most played on radio during 2004.


The top selling 20 albums between Jan. 1 and Dec 5, 2004 were:
1 What To Do With Daylight Brooke Fraser Sony Music *

RadioScope 2004 most played tracks on radio:
5 Arithmetic Brooke Fraser SBME *
13 Saving The World Brooke Fraser SBME *
14 Lifeline Brooke Fraser SBME *