Weekly Round-Up: Friday 20th December

Welcome to our final round-up of 2013! This week we decided to get into the Xmas spirit and collected together a bunch of weird and wonderful Xmas tunes as performed by the likes of The National, Calexico, Iron & Wine, Diplo, !!! and Megadeth (yes you read right).  We also got all reflective on the year gone by in our end of year feature released on Monday and for our final roundup have, as promised, dug through our stats and established some of our most popular content of year.   Unsurprisingly it is shows that reign supreme, with tour and festival announcements consistently leading our news coverage, closely followed by post-event coverage....

Top 5 News Posts

1. Big Day Out 2014 Lineup Announcement
2. Westfest 2014 Announcement
3. Laneway Festival 2014 Lineup Announcement
4. Flume New Zealand Tour Announcement
5. Fleetwood Mac New Zealand Show Announcement

(visit the News Section)

Top 5 Photo Galleries

1. The Stone Roses, Vector Arena (by Nigel Moore)
2. Tool, Vector Arena (by Nigel Moore)
3. Laneway Festival, Silo Park (by Grant Stone)
4. Neil Young and Crazy Horse, TSB Arena (by Sean Aickin)
5. Black Sabbath, Vector Arena by (Georgia Schofield)

(visit the Photo Section)

Back to the present for a moment and Wire were just announced to be heading back our way in February. Some impressive national tours were also announced this week including the return of Seatle's Shenandoah Davis for an epic tour with Anthonie Tonnon, Delaney Davidson and Marlon Williams are hitting the road for a month solid in support of the third installment of their Sad But True series, Wellington's French For Rabbits are also heading out on a summer jaunt and we also learnt this week that, sadly, Camp A Low Hum will not continue beyond 2014.

Hand in hand with tours of course are albums which bring a lot of amazing artists down our way and around the country. Here are our most viewed reviews this year, followed by a few releases we're particularly looking forward to in the new year....

Top 5 Reviews

1. Daft Punk - Random Access Memories (by Vincent Michaelsen)
2. Queens of the Stone Age - …Like Clockwork (by Chris Familton)
3. Babyshambles - Sequel To The Prequel (by Paul Larsen)
4. David Bowie - The Next Day (by Ricardo Kerr)
5. The Naked and Famous - In Rolling Waves (by Matthew Cattin)

(visit the Review Section)

Top 5 Anticipated Releases of 2014

St Vincent - St Vincent (Feb)
Liars - untitled (March)
Beck - Morning Phrase (Feb)
Street Chant - Hauora (TBA)
Popstrangers - untitled (TBA)

Back to this week and the release news kept rolling in with Beyonce casually dropping an unexpected new record over the weekend via itunes complete with a video for each of the 17 tracks, Sufjan Stevens announced the release of an album in the new year with new project Sisyphus (a continuation of last years s / s / s project), Dunedin group Trick Mammoth release an advanced stream of their new album Floristry, promising LA post-punk band Death Day released a stream of their new EP No Future, Australian blog Sonic Masala are starting up a record label and shared a great single from one of their first releases and Black Lips released the first single from their new album Underneath The Rainbow.

Videos! A crucial element of an album release and we love em - as do you - here are the most viewed video posts of the year...

Top 5 Music Videos

1. Lorde - Royals
2. Newtown Rocksteady - Something To Say
3. Knoxious (Chris Knox + Rackets) - Gagarin
4. Atoms for Peace - Judge, Jury and Executioner
5. Mali Mali - Song For The Sun

We got to chat with a bunch of amazing people this year and here are the interviews which attracted the most attention...

1. Randa
2. Blink on Square Wave Festival, Puppies + More
3. Simon Ogston on Skeptics Documentary 'Sheen of Gold’
4. Gold Panda
5. A Place To Bury Strangers

(visit the Interview Section)

WEEKEND GIG PICKS:

Friday

Auckland: Black City Lights, Boycrush and Team Navajo, Cassette
Auckland: Masters of Metal Xmas Show, Kings Arms
Wellington: Helmet, Bodega
Wellington: The Cavemen and Bad Edison, Mighty Mighty
Christchurch: Warlords of Atlantis and Politburo, Darkroom
Dunedin: Trick Mammoth and Males Album Release, Chick's Hotel
Dunedin: Prophet Hens and Sunley, Taste Merchants

Saturday

Auckland: Helmet, Auckland
Auckland: Leonard Cohen, Vector Arena
Wellington: Numbskull, Alphabethead and Brilliant Swords, Puppies
Christchurch: Delete, Delete and House of Mountain, Darkroom
Dunedin: Left or Right + guests, Chicks Hotel

Head over to our gig guide or grab our iphone app for a heap more upcoming shows and if you're still not sure how to see in the New Year,  be sure check out out dedicated New Years Eve section.

TRACKS

No new local tracks to report on this week but here are the most streamed tracks released this year...

Top 5 Tracks of 2013

Happy Holidays Everyone!!