As you might know, I am a music snob. I love finding weird and obscure music artists from all genres, countries, and time periods. There is something special about influential music that pioneered the current music we enjoy now but somehow faded into obscurity. New Zealand in the 80’s- 90’s brought tons of interesting bands and artists that created sounds similar to current to the indie scene.
Flying Nun Records is a record label that mostly produced music from the early 80’s to now. One of the most influential bands to come out of FNR was the Bats.
The Bats was started by Robert Scott, the bass player for another popular band The Clean in 1982, with Paul Kean of Toy Love, Kaye Woodward, and Malcolm Grant. With songs like “Made Up In Blue” and “North By North”. They made a name for themselves and for New Zealand by creating post-punk pop sounds that had never been heard before and similarly with other bands like The Clean, The Great Unwashed, The 3Ds, The Chills, Look Blue Go Purple, and Garageland, just to name a few. Each band created their own unique music and made names for themselves in the span of three decades.
Most of the bands never hit it big around the world but became cult classics to so many others around the world.
If you are looking to check out some of these artists you should start with albums ‘Daddy’s Highway’ by The Bats, ‘Kaleidoscope World’ by The Chills, Toy Love’s Self Titled, ‘Last Exit to Garageland’ by Garageland, and my personal favorite ‘Anthology’ by The Clean.