Nature's Best | ||||
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Compilation album by Nature's Best series | ||||
Released | 14 January 2002 | |||
Length | 115:56 | |||
Label | Sony Music New Zealand | |||
Nature's Best series chronology | ||||
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Nature's Best is a two-disc compilation album of thirty New Zealand popular music songs, selected by a panel as the top thirty New Zealand songs of all time.
The genesis of the idea was the 75th anniversary of the Australasian Performing Rights Association (APRA) in New Zealand in 2001 and the selection of the top 100 New Zealand songs of the past 75 years. A list of over 900 candidate songs was prepared, and voting was open to APRA members and an invited academy. The list of the top 100 songs was announced in stages in 2001, with the number one place going to the 1969 song "Nature" by Fourmyula.
A collaborative effort by representatives of major record companies and APRA - most notably Mike Chunn - took place to produce an album of the top 30 songs from this selection. The resulting album was named Nature's Best after the title song, and was released in January 2002 on the Sony Music label. Sales were extraordinary - in the first four months after its release, over 100,000 copies were sold (over quintuple platinum in the New Zealand market).
Subsequent releases followed: