We marked the year of music in 2025 with our Retro Now Music Awards on Boxing Day, and New Years Day

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Richard Phelps once again wrapped up 2025 with a look at the best from the best, over the last 12 months.

 

🏆 The Winners 🏆

BEST REMASTER

We look for the best remastered album, box set, expanded or anniversary edition

Finalists;

• Oasis – (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
• Prince – Around the World in a Day (40th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)
• 🏆 Bruce Springsteen – Tracks II: The Lost Albums 🏆
• INXS – Listen Like Thieves (40th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)
• Bruce Springsteen – Nebraska ‘82 (Expanded Edition)
• David Bowie – I Can’t Give Everything Away (2002 – 2016)
• Split Enz – ENZyclopedia Volumes 1 & 2

We had been waiting patiently for 27 years since the 4-disc box Tracks was released. Fans absolutely loved that box set, it was a treasure trove of unreleased songs, organized in a loose chronological fashion, and we’d heard there was a Tracks II in the works for decades. It’s pretty astounding for an artist to have seven albums that he shelved!

Most of what is in this box is new to fans. 83 unreleased songs. There are 4 complete albums, two discs that read more like a collection of songs and one unreleased soundtrack record to a movie that was never released. Bruce, then confidently tells us there is more to come, with Tracks III.

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BEST AUTOBIOGRAPHY OR BOOK

Penned either by the subject or authorised publisher

Finalists;

• 🏆 Michael J Fox – Future Boy 🏆
• Charlie Sheen – The Book Of Sheen
• Chrissy Amphlett – Pleasure and Pain: My life
• Lionel Ritchie – Truly
• Dolly Parton – Star of the Show: My Life on Stage
• Ozzy Osbourne – Last Rites
• Iron Maiden – Infinite Dreams: The Official Visual History

In early 1985, Michael J. Fox was one of the biggest stars on television. His world was about to get even bigger, but only if he could survive the kind of double duty unheard of in Hollywood.
He committed his nights to a new time-travel adventure film being directed by Robert Zemeckis and produced by Steven Spielberg.

In Future Boy, Fox tells the remarkable story of playing two landmark roles at the same time–a slice of entertainment history that’s never been told.

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BEST LIVE ACT

The tour, and who brought the best bang for buck

Finalists;

• 🏆 Metallica – M72 World Tour 🏆
• Alison Moyet – Key Tour
• Lenny Kravitz – Blue Electric Light Tour
• Toto & Christopher Cross
• Auckland Sounds 2025 – OMD, Tom Bailey
• Bryan Adams – Roll With The Punches Tour

Metallica took Eden Park supernova with their M72 world tour, by adorning metal fans in their only NZ show. Wallets got a workout, as did the audience, especially those in the snakepit area. They played all the hits, no deep cuts, with the pyrotechnics and flames chugging alongside the 40,000-strong singalong!

After a 15 year absence, Metallica left Eden Park marked and branded, with fans wet from the weather and wrecked, but still singing their way home.

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BEST FEMALE ARTIST

A woman who has inspired us in the year

Finalists;

• Sheryl Crow
• 🏆 Mariah Carey 🏆
• Betty Boo
• Melanie C
• Suzanne Vega
• Belinda Carlisle

Recently in Australia she sounded impeccable, hitting both her whistle tones and the rich, coarser notes on cuts from her album “Here For It All”

Her 16th studio album reminds us just how deep her R&B bag is. The torch songs, the gospel influence, the hip-hop inspiration that made her a musical icon – it’s all here and more. Mariah is giving us what she wants to give: soulful vocals, emotional depth, genre-spanning ambition, and that unmistakable touch of diva grace.

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BEST MALE ARTIST

A guy you’ve started a bromance with

Finalists;

• Robbie Williams
• David Byrne
• Bryan Adams
• Billy Idol
• Snoop Dogg
• 🏆 Lenny Kravitz 🏆
• Seal

He’s a fashion icon, totally ripped at 61 years old, a multi-instrumentalist, actor, author, gym bunny and still releasing hard rocking albums and touring them. Last years Blue Electric Light is as strong as any of his albums and seamlessly fits into his live setlist.

After 36 years, Lenny Kravitz finally landed in NZ as part of his Blue Electric Light Tour. It was an electrifying night of rock and love, togetherness, and keeping it super positive.

Spark Arena roared from the opening notes, with longtime fans and new generations rising to their feet. Lenny delivered a powerful, career-spanning set that reaffirmed why he remains a global rock icon more than three decades on.

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BEST GROUP

Hands down have nailed it in the last year

Finalists;

• Simple Minds
• Green Day
• 🏆 Nine Inch Nails 🏆
• Cheap Trick
• Smashing Pumpkins
• Bon Jovi
• Aerosmith

Industrial music is amazing. Think of it: thrash metal but also disco. Trent Reznor is a mastermind and can make arena’s levitate.

In 1995, nobody would’ve bet money that Nine Inch Nails would still be an operational band thirty years later, yet here they are. New Music. Tours. Games. Kudos to them for attempting the Future Ruins Music festival in LA. An immersive 3 stage event focussed on film and television composers along with performed sets of electronic music. A logistical high bar that got too complex to pull off.

Better success with movie and TV scores such as The Social Network for which they won an oscar and the TRON: Ares soundtrack as Nine Inch Nails, not Trent and Atticus, continuing their great themes of power, submission, and control.

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BEST NEW ZEALAND RELEASE

The song or album the world needs to hear

Finalists;

• Greg Johnson – Only A Little Rain (Single)
• Split Enz – ENZyclopedia Volumes 1 & 2
• Head Like A Hole – Double Your Strength, Improve Your Health And Lengthen Your Life (Reissue)
• 🏆 The Chills – Spring Board: The Early Unrecorded Songs 🏆
• The Warratahs – Burning Daylight
• Shihad – Love Is The New Hate
• Don McGlashan & Anita Clark – Take It to the Bridge

Martin Phillipps spent the last decade releasing studio and live albums while careering into his sixtieth year with typical gusto. He was digging through old tapes, searching for the foundations that resulted in global rapture in 1987. These early songs and musings were revisited, revised and finally put to record. As such, ‘Spring Board’ is the final chapter of The Chills.

This is a man casting his mind back on an esoteric career that led to nothing short of cult status; someone rediscovering his roots, his innermost thoughts, hopes and fears.

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SINGLE OF THE YEAR

Gauging critical and commercial success

Finalists;

• Mariah Carey – Type Dangerous
• David Byrne – Everybody Laughs
• Bryan Adams – Roll With The Punches
• 🏆 Smashing Pumpkins – Chrome Jets 🏆
• Sheryl Crow – The New Normal
• Aerosmith, Yungblud – My Only Angel
• Nine Inch Nails – As Alive As You Need Me To Be

“Chrome Jets” was held back as an unearthed song from the sessions for their 2024 album, Aghori Mhori Mei. A crunchy riff-jam with glassy synth interspersed.

What makes this song so unique, is that it appears to be appealing to a lot of new fans, even toddlers are connecting with it on a level unexpected. It’s a rollercoaster cut that sounds futuristic and jumping direction, it leans hard on riffs and old-school guitar work, echoing the drive of Siamese Dream’s “Cherub Rock”.

Billy Corgan has long mastered the art of rock dynamics. Without doubt, it’s uniquely the quintessential sound of the Smashing Pumpkins and is a standout release in 2025

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ALBUM OF THE YEAR

The one you should have on repeat over summer

Finalists;

• Bon Jovi – Forever (Legendary Edition)
• Nine Inch Nails – Tron: Legacy, Soundtrack
• Mariah Carey – Here For It All
• Cheap Trick – All Washed Up
• 🏆 Bryan Adams – Roll With The Punches 🏆
• Billy Idol – Dream Into It
• David Byrne – Who Is The Sky?

Now in his mid-60s, there’s still something oddly teenage about Bryan Adams. If you saw him live early in 2025 you’ll know what I mean. He was full of energy.

Roll With The Punches is his sixteenth album and the first on his own label, and he’s been churning them out at an astonishingly reliable rate since 1980. For much of the album he sounds like he’s in his first flush of love.

You just wish Bon Jovi and the like could sound this modern without being boring. Bryan Adams may be an undisputed cheesemonger, but he’s a hell of a successful one.

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COMEBACK OF THE YEAR

Who has stayed relevant, and top of mind?

Finalists;

• Men Without Hats – I Love The ‘80s
• Cheap Trick – Twelve Gates
• Young MC – Kinetic
• 🏆 Melanie C – Sweat 🏆
• Bryan Adams – Roll With The Punches
• David Byrne – Everybody Laughs
• Robbie Williams – Rocket

Before she became Mel C of the Spice Girls (Sporty Spice), Melanie Chisholm was swept up in the UK’s burgeoning ‘90s rave scene – and her new single ‘Sweat’ is a love letter to those formative days.

It brings together every part of her story, as a pop icon, an athlete, a DJ commanding festival crowds across the globe, and a teenager in love with dancing.

Her new album also called Sweat captures the spirit of a generation on the dance floor and will be out in May.

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REMIX OF THE YEAR

Retro Hits that have been remixed or re-invented

Finalists;

• Lenny Kravitz – Let It Ride, remix by Jamie Jones
• 🏆 Robbie Williams – Rock DJ, remix for the Better Man soundtrack, by Juan Ariza 🏆
• Whitney Houston – I Wanna Dance With Somebody, remix by Callum Scott
• Mariah Carey – Type Dangerous, remix by Busta Rhymes, Redman, Method Man
• Daryl Braithwaite – One Summer, remix by Murray Cook (aka the OG Red Wiggle)
• Aerosmith & Yungblud – My Only Angel, remix by Steve Martin
• The Adventures of Stevie V – Dirty Cash, remix by PAWSA

Robbie Williams is one of the most decorated music artists in the world with six of the Top 100 best-selling albums in British history, a huge 85 million album sales worldwide, 14 UK Number 1 albums and a record 18 BRIT Awards.

You’d think a biopic would be a shoe-in? It was a huge financial flop, but despite that there were some brilliant moments if you ignore a lot of creative borrowing from another biopic.

The Rock DJ scene was filmed in London’s Regent Street, with NZ’s WETA working on the animation. It is a marvel, and a fantastic re-working of Rock DJ, by latin producer, Juan Ariza.

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