As the 2026 annual Play It Strange Awards function edges towards reality; the truth of this year’s finalist songs as written by the teenage talent which populates the various schools of New Zealand rises to the surface. And with that is the bearing witness of those songs and the excitement and celebration of the colour and pattern of them.
I know this. I know how that weaves this widespread magic as I have played a part as a Play It Strange songwriting competition judge since 2004. That’s 2004! Yes, that was the very first year that songwriting entrants were called for. And that they did; those songs - they came up the stairs into Neil Finn’s office building - in which he’d kindly lent us a room - a very cool, simple, office? Yes, they did. A huge postal sack of them. It was like a Father Christmas haul. Wonderful. Well, it’s been a long long time rolling on and during that time I have heard songs that are moving, al-consuming and riveting. That’s a widely held combination of responses.
The sum of this vibrant evolution makes me a fortunate and lucky lad. And as the songs came to be played down - they were all either cassettes or videos - the assembly of creativity was mapped out for us - we at the time were a pair - Debbie Little and myself - and in a frame of excited revelation, the songs of creative excellence revealed themselves and with our having raised enough funding from a small but generous number of charitable grant bodies - we were able to select a “winning” number of songs which we could offer grants to thereby enabling the songwriter(s) to go to professional recording studios and record their selected, finalist songs for inclusion on the annual - in this case the first! - Play It Strange competition album.
So in 2004 we were off - and how many songs were selected and recorded? It was 20. And they were beautiful tracks. A triumph! And with the sound studio bookings there came the focus of balancing the recordings with the bringing into the open a public attendance by the songwriters; a public attendance of taking their finalist song post-recording session out into the public arena and performing them on stage. Live shows quickly eventuated and the publicity rose to the surface. An example. Annah Mac from St Hilda’s Collegiate in Otago won the songwriting competition in 2006, recorded the winning song “Blue Butterfly” and then embarked on a cool , national presence with live shows here, there and everywhere. She eventually reached a climax with a song “Girl In Stilettos” which peaked at number 2 in the NZ singles charts. That careful planning of writing, recording and stage performances has become a crucial factor in the current fabric of the Play It Strange assembly. And a number of writers following that strategic pattern have emerged from their songwriting efforts.
Playing live as a support structure for the successful songwriters that emerge from the long, glorious list of finalists has become a propulsive tactic and it plays a necessary part in songwriters taking their songs and their future endeavor onwards. In fact it’s more than that. It's along the road to discovery. And it has become very clear in the echoes of the annual songwriting Award Shows that Play It Strange hosts each year . Those Award Shows have prowess and fortitude and songwriters that feature have much to show in their playing a part. And on it rolls. The buoyancy of song entries is real and populated.
The Play It Strange team with the very cool CEO Stephanie Brown at the helm is a force that really motivates and brightens the whole infrastructure of Play It Strange and its competition programmes.
I have a conviction and I believe in it. The world of Play It Strange will survive for a very long period of time. It lives and will do so for decades. And I salute every teenage songwriter who enters and is awarded a ‘finalist’ award. Magical moves. For a very long period of time. There have been hundreds of them. God bless.