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Just Janie’s perfect weekend is mindful and melodic.
Just Janie’s perfect weekend is mindful and melodic.

Pop CultureJuly 13, 2024

‘I cried in the best way’: Just Janie’s perfect weekend playlist

Just Janie’s perfect weekend is mindful and melodic.
Just Janie’s perfect weekend is mindful and melodic.

The folk artist talks us through her perfect weekend playlist, full of favourites old and new.

If you find yourself on a hike this weekend, headphones on and mind daydreaming about the Laurel Canyon, it might be the perfect time for Just Janie’s ‘Muse and Musician’.

The South Island singer-songwriter’s latest single is a love letter to Fleetwood Mac, musicianship and movement that signifies change, so it makes sense that all these elements also make up her ideal weekend. “I am a creature of habit and simplicity,” she says. “I have memories of days spent at that ever changing river hole. Of childhood with cockabilly nets surrounded by the popping broom. Sticky sunblocked skin. The river hole has always been a place I feel grounded.”

With ‘Muse and Musician’ now out in the world, Just Janie shared the tunes that make for a blissful, inspired and most of all perfect weekend, from a scorned lover’s ode to tunes that evoke memories of Dunedin student flats.

Fleetwood Mac – ‘Storms’

Stevie Nicks wrote Storms about her affair with bandmate Mick Fleetwood. It’s heartbreaking and raw. I also love her final description of herself: “I have always been a storm.” Fleetwood Mac inspired ‘Muse and Musician’, so they have to be included in this list! 

Tiny Ruins – ‘Out of Phase’

I went to a Tiny Ruins show in Ōtautahi recently and Hollie was inspiring. I’d worked a background music gig right beforehand and had experienced some really negative crowd behaviour so felt quite vulnerable and raw. Tiny Ruins’ show reminded me about the beauty of music and songwriting. I have listened to the entire discography for the past few weeks, but ‘Out of Phase’ in particular struck me, especially due to Hollie’s explanations of the songs meaning and her ability to share something so beautiful and painful. I cried in the best way. Absolutely mesmerising.

Sig Wilder & Friends – ‘Texasman’

This song captures America and Austin while also having the ability to transport me home, to the rugged dry landscape with its small town pubs left behind in a capsule. Cowboy grit and Americana folk, Texasman is relatable to anyone following their dreams and leaving home. Matt’s talent blows me away. 

The War on Drugs – ‘Under Pressure’

The War on Drugs is one of my favourite bands (ever) and their music sounds best when you listen to the albums in their entirety. It’s hard to pick just one song. The band have a mixture of Bob Dylan vocals, rustic rhythms and nostalgia for 80s rock. They’re the epitome of summer heat, blue skies and long road trips. 

Dire Straits – ‘Wild West End’

I mean anything with Mark Knopfler’s gritty voice and trademark guitar, but you asked for one! My first vinyl record was Dire Straits’ 1978 self-titled album and I can still remember dancing to this song in my student flat in Dunedin. 

Gregory Alan Isakov – ‘San Luis’

This song makes me dream of home, the mountain range outside my window. I found out recently that Gregory Alan Isakov is both a farmer and musician. As a musician, born and raised on a farm this multi-faceted identity is fascinating and a dream of mine. To have co-existing elements of one’s self. San Luis is a song that captures that to me. It’s also like a lullaby. 


Her’s – ‘What Once Was’

This song has been in my top 10 on Spotify Wrapped for three or four years in a row now. This song is a vibe! It features on all my road trips. 

America – ‘Ventura Highway’

I love the guitar in this track. Bit of 70s nostalgia seeped in warm yellow. 

George Harrison – ‘The Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let it Roll)’

This song got me through some difficult times. It can feel a bit tricky and complicated listening to it now as it sort of sits in a period of grief and struggle but is also healing. 

Mac Demarco – ‘Still Beating’

‘Still Beating’ sits in a time capsule for my years living in Dunedin as a student, of student flats, of crushes, of learning, and growing up.

ThreeNews weekday anchor Samantha Hayes and some very big geese (Screengrab)
ThreeNews weekday anchor Samantha Hayes and some very big geese (Screengrab)

Pop CultureJuly 12, 2024

Wheelie bins and really big geese: How has ThreeNews’ first week gone?

ThreeNews weekday anchor Samantha Hayes and some very big geese (Screengrab)
ThreeNews weekday anchor Samantha Hayes and some very big geese (Screengrab)

Tara Ward watches the first few days of the new ThreeNews era.

This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here.

The city of New York has just discovered wheelie bins, and the news has sent ThreeNews anchor Samantha Hayes into a hearty case of the giggles. “I remember getting wheelie bins in Milton when I was a kid,” Hayes laughs to weather presenter Heather Keats, who seems as equally as bemused by the march of progress across one of the world’s biggest cities. It’s nearing the end of ThreeNews’ fifth ever news bulletin, and they’ve saved the weirdest story for last: America now has rubbish bins.

We’re nearly a week into the ThreeNews era, now produced by Stuff after 35 years of being made by Three and Newshub, and the ratings are going well. Figures provided by Warner Bros. Discovery show that Saturday’s edition received an average of 19.3% of viewers aged 25-54 (up from 15.7% over the last quarter), and an increase of 89% on the week prior in the 5+ age demographic. Live streams were also up 19% on the previous four week average.

Saturday night’s inaugural bulletin was sleek, shiny and very, very purple. Now with a few more bulletins under its belt, how has ThreeNews fared during its longer one-hour weekday editions – and how many wheelie-bin stories are too many?

ThreeNews sports presenter Ollie Ritchie (Screengrab)

Breaking news: it’s still purple. Former Newshub presenter Samantha Hayes was in the anchor seat on Monday, and kicked off ThreeNews’ first weekday bulletin with her typical warmth and professionalism. Along with fellow former Newshub journalists like Laura Tupou, Jenna Lynch, Juliet Speedy and Tova O’Brien, Hayes appears to have shifted seamlessly across to ThreeNews. The experience of the ex-Newshub team is critical to this new news being taken seriously, and it feels like we’re in safe hands.

Each edition this week covered a variety of local, national and international stories, from the prime minister’s visit to the Nato summit to some annoying Canada geese in Canterbury to Lulu Sun’s Wimbledon tournament. ThreeNews also ventured beyond the studio, reporting from parliament, travelling to Spain for a live interview with Team New Zealand’s Grant Dalton and crossing live to Tova O’Brien in Washington DC – or as it was accidentally called, “Barcellona”.

So far, it feels like ThreeNews is covering all its bases, but understandably, there’s still a few things to be fine tuned. A sports interview on Monday night was filmed with a camera that moved so much I felt seasick. Saturday’s exclusive interview with a Whakatāne gang leader popped up again on Tuesday, and featured much of the same content. There were also some lighter items towards the end of each edition that felt out of place, like footage of a Cornwall ice-cream van floating out to sea or John Cena announcing his wrestling retirement, or the aforementioned wheelie bins.

Heather with the weather (Screengrab)

And no matter how hard I try, I can’t stop trying to work out where the floor ends and begins during Heather Keats’ pixellated weather report. That green screen has got me good, and while it’s a tad more obvious when Simon Dallow is pretending to be in outer space, it’s unnerving that I can’t work out which parts of the ThreeNews studio are real and which parts aren’t.

Clearly, ThreeNews is still working out who it wants to be, and who it really is. It’s doing the basics well, delivering the essential news with energy and authority and keeping us informed on international events, but there’s no doubt this is a move of extremely high stakes. Stuff promised innovation and freshness, but will its nightly interactive polls, ad-break quiz questions and mystifying set be enough of a point of difference to retain viewers, and ideally, draw them over from TVNZ? For ThreeNews’ sake, I wheelie, wheelie hope so.

ThreeNews screens on Three every night at 6pm and streams on ThreeNow.