“Through falling leaves I pick my way slowly…” In 1970 a musical paean to getting your nature buzz topped the charts. ‘Nature’, by The Fourmyula, became a Kiwi classic: in 2001 an APRA poll voted it the best local song of the past 75 years. This 2010 Close Up report, from Auckland’s Montecristo Room, sees presenter Mark Sainsbury introduce the band's second performance of 'Nature' in Aotearoa (the band were overseas when it topped the charts). He quizzes composer Wayne Mason, and drummer Chris Parry recalls encountering The Clash while working in the English music scene.

Record label Flying Nun is synonymous with Kiwi indie music, and with autonomous DIY, bottom-of-the-world creativity. This collection celebrates the label's ethos as manifested in the music videos. Selected by label founder Roger Shepherd: "A general style may have loosely evolved ... but it was simply due to limited budgets and correspondingly unlimited imaginations."

This collection rounds up almost every music video for a number one hit by a Kiwi artist; everything from ballads to hip hop to glam rock. Press on the images below to find the hits for each decade  — plus try this backgrounder by Michael Higgins, whose high speed history of local hits touches on the sometimes questionable ways past charts were created.  

Wayne Mason — multi-instrumentalist and composer of The Fourmyula classic 'Nature' — talks about songwriting and his musical evolution in this episode, from a series made for high school students. He demonstrates his piano playing (on an energetic boogie-woogie work out) and a Scandalli accordion on 'High and Dry' (which he wrote in the Warratahs). He discusses the origins of 'Nature', and his songwriting technique (which always begins on a guitar); and muses on his high school band The Fourmyula which took him to Abbey Road, where he met The Beatles.

This muscular early 90s cover of The Fourmyula’s pastoral 1969 classic comes from the first album by Don McGlashan’s band The Mutton Birds. The award-winning music video was directed by Fane Flaws — the first of six he made with the band (after previously working with McGlashan on The Front Lawn’s Beautiful Things clip). Guest vocalist Jan Hellriegel features amongst the battery of kaleidoscopic and psychedelic digital effects used to evoke the joys of nature. In 2001 the original tune was voted best New Zealand song in 75 years by songwriting association APRA. 

The Warratahs formed in 1986 around Barry Saunders and Wayne Mason (ex-Fourmyula, and composer of the classic 'Nature'). TVNZ arts presenter Nik Brown played fiddle. Following a residency playing covers of country standards at Wellington's Cricketers Arms, the band began recording their own material. Their timeless, Kiwi-inflected, neo-traditional country, and relentless touring made them a beloved and unique presence in the fashion-conscious music scene of the late 1980s. After a few years off, the band reformed, this time without Mason.

In 1973 EMI producer Alan Galbraith amassed a supergroup of Kiwi musicians to provide session music for the label’s artists, including singer Mark Williams. The band’s first line-up was Wayne Mason and Carl Evensen (The Fourmyula), Keith Norris and Clint Brown (Rebirth, Taylor) and Bruce Robinson (Face, The Pleazers). Rockinghorse released two albums of their own, and won gongs for Best Group and Single at the 1975 RATA Awards. The band's celebrations led to a year-long ban from the Lion Breweries pub circuit.