The Festive Dozen 2015: Mel Parsons - Get Out Alive

I listened to a lot more locally produced New Zealand music than ever before in 2015. Not only because of my commitment to writing reviews and articles for NZ Musician, which guaranteed a steady flow of fresh material (and inspiration), but also because I wanted to. Because I sought it out and looked for it at every turn.

I truly believe that 2015 was a bumper year for local stuff, one of the best ever, and when I get around to writing up the annual everythingsgonegreen “albums of the year” list, I already know that around half of those albums will have been made by NZ-based artists.

One such release was the Mel Parsons full-length offering Drylands, a gem of an album which just kept on getting better and better with each and every listen.

It is a difficult task to single out one solitary track from Drylands for the purposes of this (Festive Dozen) exercise, simply because there are so many choice cuts to pick from. But in the end I’ve opted for the Silver Scroll-nominated ‘Get Out Alive’, the third single culled from the album. The beauty of this one is that it is based on a real-life event, an actual car accident that Parsons survived, so it’s written and sung straight from the heart …

(The Festive Dozen is a fairly randomly selected year-end collection of clips featuring the tunes which featured most prominently on the (generally pop-loving) iPod playlists of everythingsgonegreen at various stages throughout 2015) ...