Lorde Sings Solar Power atop Ed Sullivan Theater
New Zealand pop singer Lorde, 24, was the musical guest on a recent episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert where she performed the title track from her forthcoming album Solar Power, NME’s…
Tag Archives: NME
Six60 Play World’s Only Stadium Tour
They’re currently the planet’s biggest touring band, putting on huge shows in their COVID-free homeland, NME reports. In his own words, Six60’s frontman, Matiu Walters, told the magazine how that feels. “When New Zealand went into…
Comedian Rose Matafeo’s 2021 is Shaping Up
With an acclaimed romcom, one-off HBO special and a new sitcom out this year, 2021 is looking good for New Zealand-born rising comic, Rose Matafeo, who is based in the UK. NME’s George Fenwick recently…
Benee’s Debut Out Featuring UK Pop Royalty
Grimes and Lily Allen feature on Auckland pop sensation Benee’s debut album, Hey u x, and she’s just played one of the post-Covid era’s first arena shows. The twenty-year-old tells NME’s Caitlin O’Reilly about…
Rising Star Robinson Hits Huge Streaming Figures
Young New Zealand singer-songwriter who goes by just her surname, Robinson, has had a lot to get excited about recently, NME reports. Her latest tune “Nothing to Regret” has totally blown up. It’s gone…
2008 Ladyhawke Debut Still Resounds
“ Barack Obama became the first African-American to be elected President of the United States (which was great),…
NME Names Lorde’s Melodrama No 1 Album of 2017
“2017 has been a bad year for silly things like international relations and basic human decency,” according to NME. “It’s been a good year, though, for really important things like albums.” Lorde’s Melodrama is the…
Connan Mockasin’s Soft Hair Swampy Psychedelia
Connan Mockasin “a recluse from New Zealand” and Sam Eastgate of UK band Late of the Pier have teamed up to form Soft Hair, “a reverie of swampy psychedelia”, writes NME journalist Ben Homewood in a…
Comedian Rhys Darby Joins X-Files Cast
Actor Rhys Darby, who played werewolf Anton in What We Do in the Shadows, will join the cast of The X-Files “event series” as a man suspected by Fox Mulder to be the perpetrator…
Golden Globe Nomination for Lorde’s Hunger Games Single
Lorde is “blown away” by a Golden Globe nomination for her hit single Yellow Flicker Beat included on the soundtrack to The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, which the eighteen-year-old herself curated. “I am…
US Indie Film Role for Former Vampire Jemaine Clement
New Zealand comedian Jemaine Clement, who played 862-year-old Vladislav in What We Do in the Shadows, will next star in the indie drama People Places Things directed by James Strouse. Following appearances in Hollywood films…
Lorde Trumps the Big Guns to Take MTV Best Rock Video
Lorde has become the first female artist to win in the category Best Rock Video at the MTV Video Music Awards, beating Arctic Monkeys, Linkin Park, The Black Keys and Imagine Dragons. The 17-year-old scooped…
Making Music with Sustenance and Soul
Blair Jollands, who is signed to Boy George’s label More Protein, “is a real songwriter’s songwriter with sustenance and soul”, according to Contactmusic, who talked recently with the London-based New Zealander about writing for…
Remembering Sixties Country Star Houston Wells
The life of Houston Wells, sixties country singer, is celebrated in the Independent this month. Wells, born Andrew Smith in 1932 north of Newcastle upon Tyne, lived on the shores of Lake Taupo until…
Travelling the Inked Map of Her Father’s Life
A coloured butterfly, a pseudo-celtic armband, a giant spiral: the tattoos on New Zealander Nell Frizzell’s father are an inky historical record of his lifetime’s journey through continents, relationships, families, marriages and deaths. Ahead…
Popstrangers Not to Be Missed, Says NME
New Zealand’s Popstrangers are winning some high praise in the UK. In fact, NME’s Lisa Wright rates them one of ‘5 new band’s you can’t miss’ in her rundown on the 2013 Liverpool Sound…
Album Upbeat She Swears
Ladyhawke has announced the release of her second album, Anxiety, which will be out on 19 March 2012. It has been recorded over the past year at producer Pascal Gabriel’s house in the south of…
Naked at Glastonbury
Auckland band The Naked and Famous, together with Metronomy and Wu-Tang Clan, helped open this year’s Glastonbury music festival. Bass player David Beadle talked to NME ahead of the Pyramid Stage headliners U2. “I…
Critical darlings most promising
Art-pop quintet The Naked and Famous has been named as this year’s “most promising new act” by NME; post-award ceremony the band talks to Mark Savage of BBC 6 about their recent “good fortunes”….
Buzz-worthy bands
“Z is For (New) Zealand,” in NME’s New Music Glossary for 2011, “a handy guide to all the buzz-worthy jargon for the coming 12 months.” “Finally it seems there’s a new generation of bands…
Hot in the Isles
Ladyhawke played to a packed audience, including The O.C. A-lister Mischa Barton, in the John Peel Tent at this year’s Glastonbury Festival on June 28. “Pip Brown and her band played a charged set…
Nomination for Brown
Ladyhawke continues to make entertainment headlines with a 2009 Shockwaves NME Award nomination for Best Solo Artist, alongside Laura Marling, Lightspeed Champion, Jay-Z and Pete Doherty. The Awards will be announced…
Check one-two
Auckland five-piece The Checks featured as the Guardian’s New Band of the Day for August 22. Music critic Paul Lester: “These five New Zealanders may be teenagers, but they sound as old as the…
Finn welcomes world to his kingdom
Tim Finn has embarked on a tour of the UK and Europe to promote his latest solo album, Imaginary Kingdom. Finn wrote most of the album in NZ, which he says had a…
Let there be more rock
As if they don’t have enough rock cred already, The Datsuns have hired Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones to produce their highly anticipated second album. Says singer, Dolf de Datsun, “It’s going really well…
We salute you
The Datsuns’ popularity in the U.K shows no signs of diminishing. The boys from Cambridge took out Best Live Band at the New Musical Express annual showcase of rock’s best. Other winners included…
Addicted to rock
The Datsuns’ popularity in the U.K shows no signs of diminishing. The boys from Cambridge are soon to headline NME‘s annual showcase of “the forthcoming year’s thrusting new talent” in what will be their fourth U.K tour…
For those about to rock
“The greatest rock’n’roll band since the Rolling Stones.” Rave reviews like this have earned The Datsuns an unprecedented 200,000 pound one album deal with Britain’s V2 Records plus countless offers to tour. “If…
