Various: Nature’s Best: New Zealand’s Top 30 Songs of All Time

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

Here it is — the album of Apra's best Kiwi songs that got the nation's gums flapping two months ago.

It sure bounces along as the two CDs count down from No 1, the Fourmyula's gently breezy 1969 ode to frolicking in the ferns Nature — which provides the conveniently cheesy album title — all the way to Shihad's 1997 Home Again, which ends it all in air-punching style, having frequented various Finns, quite a few Dobbyns and a couple of Rungas along the way.

The run-down makes for some odd juxtapositions — from Ruru Karitiana's Blue Smoke to Blerta's Dance All Around the World to Fur Patrol's Lydia in three moves is quite a triple jump.

There's a short stiff, essay in the pohutukawa-decorated cover booklet about the history of New Zealand song but no more info other than the song credits (for a blow-by-blow history of the top 10 you can always go to: nzherald.co.nz/toptensongs).

It's still one heck of a jukebox for down the hall on a Saturday night or a multitude of other uses — and you can bet that a Volume 2 taking in the next 30 place-getters wouldn't go amiss either.

Label: Sony