Can you hear the music?

Can you hear the music?

Kiwi music now dominates not only the airwaves but also the charts.

For the first time ever, four of the top five album spots in the weekly New Zealand record charts have gone to local recording artists.

Our previous best achievement was four albums in the top 13 in 1975. The Top 50 chart has been going for 28 years.

The latest Top 50 chart figures have been issued by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand today.

Heading the list at number one is Hayley Westenra with her new album 'Pure'.

At number two on the charts is 'Beautiful Collision', Bic Runga's top selling album that has been in the charts for a phenomenal 53 weeks.

Spoiling the Kiwi run, Cold Play takes third place this week - OK, they played a gig in Auckland last week - with their album 'A Rush of Blood to the Head'.

Fourth on the charts was 'White Sunday' by rising local hip hop artist Mareko while at number five was 'Love and Disrespect', the debut album of young Auckland band Elemeno P.

The Top 50 Chart began reporting on New Zealand's favourite music in 1975. The chart is based on a formula combining radio station airplay and retail sales.

RIANZ chief executive Terence O'Neill-Joyce salutes the achievement.

"This is a week to celebrate kiwi music; a week where our own have shouldered aside the best of international acts.

"This shows a huge commitment to local music from retail, from radio and television, from the media but most of all from the public who are putting our music where it belongs, at the top!

"It's something everyone in New Zealand should be proud of and it is inspiration to move forward to even bigger goals for our music in Aotearoa."

Brendan Smyth, NZ Music Manager for broadcasting funding agency NZ On Air, echoes Mr O'Neill-Joyce's sentiments. "Every week I get out my yellow highlighter pen and mark up the local artists in the charts. To see such a solid block of yellow there at the top of the albums charts is fabulous. "New Zealand music is riding high at the moment - whichever way you look at it - on the charts, on the radio, on television, at home and overseas with something like nine times more New Zealand music on New Zealand radio now than there was eight years ago. "Radio is a big part of the reason for the current buoyant state of things but it's more than radio. It's great to see such diversity at the top of the charts too." Released by Universal Music just two weeks ago, Hayley Westenra's second album 'Pure' has proved an instant best seller after a high profile launch at the Auckland Art Gallery in early July.

Her superb voice combined with some high powered production expertise in London have produced a wonderful album that has debuted at number 17 on the Australian pop charts and number1 on the Aussie classical chart.

Bic Runga's 'Beautiful Collision' on Sony Music has now been in the Top 50 Charts for 53 weeks, taking second place to True Colours, the Split Enz album that holds the record at 76 weeks. According to RIANZ archives, the album's eight weeks at number one is a national record.

Mareko is the first New Zealand Hip Hop MC to be signed directly to a US hip hop label - HRH / Fat Beats Records in New York - and his debut album 'White Sunday' on Universal Records is set for release later this year in the US.

'Love & Disrespect' is the debut album of new pop band Elemeno P. It debuted at number 1 in the New Zealand chart two weeks ago. Released on the Universal label it gives that company three of the top five in this week's Top 50.

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