Various: Godzone: The Biggest Hits

By GRAHAM REID

(Herald rating: * * * )

Thirty-three track, double disc which takes a driftnet approach to almost three decades of Kiwi music and inevitably trawls up unworthy inclusions (the Katene Sisters?) and some lesser moments (Ngaire's To Sir With Love, When the Cat's Away's Melting Pot), alongside classic songs such as Greg Johnson's Isabelle, Shona Laing's Kennedy, Dave Dobbyn's Language and DLT and Che Fu's Chains.

By grabbing across the time zones and styles there's a lack of focus (Sharon O'Neil's Maxine ballads bump into Midge Marsden's rocking Burning Rain) and a clumsiness to the running order (from the Holidaymakers' 80s synthpop on Sweet Lovers to Anika Moa's recent Youthful). But it will allow suburban parties to rock once more to Southside of Bombay, Herbs, the Exponents, Tim Finn and more, even if people have to sit out the slow ones scattered between.

No liner notes, telly-advertised (that's Tim Shadbolt doing the huckster's pitch, is it?) and subtitled Volume One.

Label: Warners