The Front Page: Kiwi musicians and artists being left in the dark

Kiwi musicians are struggling to have their stories told. Photo / 123rf

Kiwi musician Rodney Fisher released a solo album earlier this year, but not many Kiwis would have been aware of that.

The long-time lead singer of Goodshirt has struggled enormously to get decent coverage or an in-depth critical review of his latest work.

Speaking to The Front Page podcast, experienced pop culture journalist Chris Schulz says he recently spoke to Fisher to find out how his new album was going.

“He told me he hadn’t been able to get anyone to cover it,” says Schulz, who now works as an investigative writer at Consumer but still blogs on the music industry via his Substack newsletter The Boiler Room.

“There were little bits and pieces here and there, but no kind of in-depth review.”

Schulz says Fisher wasn’t interested in PR, but rather wanted respected critics to offer a view about whether his work was any good.

These critical reviews are key in terms of helping Kiwi artists grow and develop their skills, but also do the job of introducing the music to fans who might be interested in it.

“He’s done something, he’s put something out there, and it’s just crickets. So what has he actually achieved?”

Schulz says observations like these are becoming a common theme in the conversations he has with Kiwi musicians for the articles he writes in his spare time..

“A lot of these artists have really good stories, and if you get the right journalist in front of them to pull those stories out, you can make something that’s readable and really works for audiences.”

The problem is that this isn’t only affecting musicians. With the contraction of the media industry over the last two decades, we’ve also seen a decline in stories on pop culture and the art scene.

“It’s massively worrying,” says Schulz.

“I worry about the artists not getting enough exposure. There was this great singer called Erny Belle. She released an album a couple of weeks back. It’s her second album, and it’s incredible. It’s so good. It’s the kind of thing that would have in the past made cover stories for arts and culture magazines.

“I asked her publicist, ‘Who’s doing the deep dive, who’s doing the big story on her for this album release?’ And they were like, ‘She’s got a couple of things lined up’, but no one was sitting down to find out how that album was born or what the story was behind it… I kind of have to catch myself because I find it a little depressing.”

The thing that Schulz finds most worrying is the cultural void this ultimately leaves in New Zealand’s narrative.

“You’re documenting culture. Whether you’re a political journalist or a sports reporter, there’s a real concern that if we’re not capturing things, if we’re not putting them into context, then we’re not going to be able to look back and go: ‘Look what happened.’

“You can go all the way back to the ‘80s and read about the old Sweetwater festivals. You can read Big Day Out and Laneway Festival reviews. That’s all there. If we’re not documenting it now, then we won’t have a record of these things ever happening. I just can’t imagine that happening with something like the All Blacks games or the elections.”

So, what does happen when our pop culture stories aren’t told as frequently? And who will trumpet our future international superstars if we don’t?

Listen to the full episode of The Front Page podcast, to hear more from Schulz on this growing dearth in our pop culture scene.

The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. It is presented by Damien Venuto, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in business reporting who joined the Herald in 2017.

You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.