So Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah is still slightly annoying, even in its beautifully slinky and soulful original version as it is here. But you can't really go wrong with these 19 tracks from the golden age of Phil Spector.

As the name might suggest, the song Boom Boom Da Na is mostly a load of prattling drivel, something not usually associated with prolific grime poet Wiley.

If you, like me had been couchbound since the beginning of the television coverage, you might have forgotten there was a game on.

TrinityRoots' third coming saw a refigured lineup coming together to continue the legacy of one of New Zealand's best-loved bands.

Summoning the crowd to the dance floor with a jam reminiscent of Mara TK's roots in blues and psychedelic grooves, Electric Wire Hustle announced their intention to bring their unique blend of forward-thinking hip hop, soul and rhythm to Auckland.

Graham Reid reviews Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down by Ry Cooder.

Apparently Kimbra had tentatively intended to replace the catchy bom-bo-bom-ba vocal hook on the track Settle Down with a similar horn line or a beat, but I'm glad she didn't.

Tim Finn and his little brother will be dusting off their songbooks for the pre-tournament festivities tomorrow night, but the elder's latest solo album shows his side of the family jukebox has just undergone a major refresh.

Simultaneously melodramatic and emotionally inert, this story of a quartet of photographers who documented the viciously bloody conflict between ANC and Inkhata supporters in 1994 is like an action photo with all the life airbrushed out of it.

John Boyne, author of The Boy in Striped Pyjamas, has published a new novel with links to World War I. The Absolutist traces the experiences of a young serviceman through a deft weave of past and present.

Graham Reid, once a handy winger and goal kicker, gets in a rugger mood.

Love him or loathe him, he does what he does well.

Here's a turn-up. Kravitz - who has released some self-indulgent stinkers in the past - returns with his best album since 1993's Are You Gonna Go My Way.

In this volume the Griffith writers look inward and backwards to gain some fresh insight into not only their own lives but the lives of us all.

It's business as unusual for a band big on chords and enjoyably familiar progressions, hook-filled pop-rock, sometimes lazily obvious lyrics and the occasional sense of Cheap Trick-like irony.

This Finnish documentary, surely the best film ever made about men sitting in saunas, will not be for all tastes.

Good time listening, horn-driven party music mostly, and the stepping stone to that remarkable Palmer doco.

A terrible thing happened, that day, up at Blackwoods' place, in The Secret River, the first of Grenville's historical novels set in the penal colony of New South Wales.

Every city can lay claim to its fair share of eccentrics. This book is about one of Melbourne's: Edward William Cole.

This book might more accurately have been titled In Love With Dante. It is a wholehearted piece of advocacy for the 14th century writer, of whom Wilson says it "could be argued that he was the greatest of all European poets, of any time or place".

This first live album by the Los Angeles-based Kiwi songwriter has that all-important crackle, freshness, and smouldering purity that transports you back to the venue where the songs were first performed.