Being the sole music video Solid Gold Hell ever produced, the Flying Nun band made sure it was top shelf. However given conspicuous consumption levels, one might conclude they hadn't intended the clip for a mainstream audience. "We shot some of it at the Las Vegas Strip Club. Not sure why we are playing cards and smoking a lot - it seemed like a good idea and worked well for the lighting. I'm particularly proud of my custom made sock garters, which make a brief appearance." Guitarist Matthew Heine -  March 09

Set in a Grey Lynn fish'n'chip shop, this clip delivers a killer kai moana concept, when it's revealed that the greasy takeaway is merely a front for the club downstairs. Winner of Best Music Video at the 2006 Vodafone NZ Music Awards, the video features a host of cameos in addition to the members of Fat Freddy's Drop: including Danielle Cormack, Ladi6, John Campbell and Carol Hirschfeld. It was directed by Mark 'Slave' Williams, sometime MC for the band. The track was part of Fat Freddy's first studio album Based on a True Story, one of the biggest-selling in Kiwi history.

Salmonella Dub’s roots, dub, and drum’n’bass cocktail is shaken up on this single from their fifth album One Drop East. John Chrisstoffels’ energetic video won Juice TV’s Best R’n’b/Urban award in 2003. It borders on the claustrophobic as the camera gets right in amongst the band and an enthusiastic audience (swathed in appropriately rasta red, gold and green lighting). An apple-munching brass section might be a first but it’s megaphone-wielding singer Tiki Taane who is the centre of attention as he toasts up a storm.

In the 1990s Maree Sheehan was one of a small number of Māori women who used Māori instrumentation to create their own special flavour of dance music, hip hop and R'n'B. The video for this highly percussive R’n’B track from 1995 features performances by kapa haka group Te Ao Hurihanga. The stylish monochrome clip was partially shot on Auckland's One Tree Hill, before it lost its famous tree. Josh Frizzell, who directed this, had recently helmed one of the most played Kiwi music videos of 1994 — System Virtue, for Māori singer Emma Paki. 

Comprised of veteran players from Auckland’s punk scene, The Bleeders quickly made a name for themselves with their polished take on the then-nascent ‘post-hardcore’ sound of the early 2000s. ‘Out of Time’, a tribute to friends of the band who were killed in a car accident, was their first single for Universal. The accompanying video has singer Angelo Munro stalking the tunnels and ramps of an inner-city skate park before joining an entourage of friends, fans and hangers-on for the song’s anthemic chorus — and a poignant gesture to the heavens. 

The Mockers were at the peak of their mid-80s pop prowess when they released this single. It originated with Andrew Fagan’s Wellington based co-writer Gary Curtis hearing reports of the 1984 Queen Street riot in Auckland (after an outdoor concert which had featured The Mockers). The music video places the band amongst the lions, acrobats, rides and sideshows of the now defunct Whirling Brothers Circus (set up in Victoria Park in inner city Auckland). Fagan is resplendent in a velvet frock coat with lace cuffs, black choker and matching nail polish.

It’s standard practice for a music video to complement a song but not on this angry media denunciation from a mid-90s hip-hop partnership featuring MC OJ and the Rhythm Slave and Darryl 'DLT' Thompson. The Josh Frizzell directed mini-epic allows them to channel their inner Tarantino in a drama featuring an Eastern European femme fatale, a criminal mastermind, a bomb, a speeding car, code breaking and the men’s toilet at Auckland’s Hotel DeBrett. Meanwhile, the music functions very much as a soundtrack as it fades in and out of the action.

Gramsci was the brainchild of musician Paul McLaney; ‘Easy’, the first single off Gramsci's debut album Permanence, got plenty of airplay on radio network Channel Z. Perhaps incongruously for a band named after an Italian Marxist philosopher, the song has a loose'n'funky vibe. The simple black and white music video intercuts between a goateed McLaney performing the song, and a river scene. On the riverbed is a TV showing Gramsci’s performance, and a man on a mysterious mission. 

One minute and 57 seconds of fast, furious and fully fledged rock n roll behavior - a video clip that beautifully represents The D4's mission statement. Frenetic editing, testosterone pumped performances and gritty lighting push the song forward at a frantic pace, while Alex Mench's subtle inclusions like a boot to the camera and askew framing place the viewer centre front of the mosh pit.

Luke Sharpe’s video for the 2008 number one hit sets out to educate audiences about the Nesian style: replete with graffiti hibiscus, hawaiian shirts ... and hot teacher. The band is shot in front of a green screen, with totems uniting their central Auckland upbringing with their ancestral Polynesian past shown behind them. From baggy jeans to greenstone pendants, corned beef to fish’n’chips, the references nod to the South Pacific influences on the Mystik sound: “Just keep it fresh no matter where you be.” It won Best Hip Hop Video at the 2008 Juice TV Awards.