It's fair to say Nick Bollinger's new book, 100 Essential New Zealand Albums, has been a while in the making, a bit like some of those mid-'80s Flying Nun releases around which rumours would swirl long before the arrival of any new tracks.
Indeed, were it entirely up to Bollinger (50), the long-time music critic, writer, musician and broadcaster would probably still be finalising his selection, painstakingly comparing Max Merritt & The Meteors' 1976 album, Out Of The Blue, with the band's earlier effort, A Little Easier, before making the contentious call that, yes, the latter is the better despite its lack of a hit single.
However, deadline requirements eventually prompted Bollinger to sign off on his top 100.
Several albums (he doesn't disclose which ones) were sacrificed through "agonising" decisions; now his list of all lists, published by Awa Press, is available for public inspection, rumination, debate.
"I certainly expect to get some flak," Bollinger says via phone from his Auckland home.
"Everyone who picks it up will be incensed by something that is in there, or something that isn't.
"And that's fine.
"That's the nature of pop music.
"People always feel passionately about it."
In order to get stuck into the project, Bollinger took a couple of breaks from his long-running National Radio music show, The Sampler; likewise, his regular articles in The Listener were suspended at times over the past couple of years as he rummaged around for albums he'd heard of but not listened to, "to really make sure I had a good idea of what's out there".
Bollinger's effort is not the first to cover New Zealand music.
John Dix's Stranded in Paradise, published in 1988 but re-released and updated in 2005, and Gareth Schute's NZ Rock: 1987-2007 are two books that spring to mind, as does Grant Smithies' Soundtrack: 118 Great New Zealand Albums.
Yet Bollinger spied a space in the shelves, something that might fit between the excellent histories of the former two and the passionate, highly subjective approach of Smithies' release, among others.
"I thought there was a critical gap," Bollinger explains.
"There have been some excellent histories ...
"I thought there were a lot of books that recorded the facts but not many that stood back and took a critical look: what makes good or bad music, what's special, the stuff we should be celebrating."
Bollinger is careful to remain within the (albeit loose) parameters of "pop" music, i.e. a result of a hybrid of musical styles rather than any single genre.
Thus, there is no electronica, country or jazz, though these strains infuse various selections.
"I was considering things like Douglas Lilburn's electronic recordings, things that are off the popular radar, but I thought I had to rein this in somehow.
I thought I'd stay away from those specialised areas.
There are enough styles that can be classed as pop to keep it broad enough for everyone."
In an age of iTunes playlists and downloadable singles, Bollinger notes his book could form part of a wider eulogy for the long-player format, that concept by which artists select and programme songs in the hope they might be enjoyed in a specific sequence.
"The album is going the way of the symphony.
People won't stop writing them, but it becomes more of a boutique thing where a serious select audience sits down to consume them."
A great album requires more than just a single or two, Bollinger contends.
It must hold the listener, offer surprises and ensure repeated visits.
And it need not have been made on a massive budget: certainly, The Gordons' self-titled 1981 debut, recorded in one thunderous 22-hour session, wasn't; nor was Chris Knox's inventive 1990 effort Seizure.
Many of Bollinger's selections make the grade by virtue of outstanding performances.
Take 1964 release Introducing Dinah Lee.
"It just jumps out of the speakers," he enthuses.
"The band on that is fantastic.
"It's Max Merritt and The Meteors, who had been playing non-stop at the time.
"It's like that first Beatles album, Please Please Me.
"It has that same quality - of a band stuck in the studio for 12 hours.
"It is so live and her singing is so raw and committed ...
You can lose that sense of time and place if a recording is stretched out over months and years."
Perhaps that's why he has chosen Dimmer's second album, 2004's You've Got To Hear the Music, instead of 2001 effort I Believe You Are A Star, a debut over which prime mover Shayne Carter, formerly of Straitjacket Fits, laboured for several years.
"That's actually quite a contentious choice," Bollinger admits.
"I know people who don't like that record at all, who say the first Dimmer album is a classic.
I made a few pragmatic choices.
Using Dimmer as an example, by writing about that album I could write about Carter's whole body of work."
That ability to contextualise an album, to look at it in the bright or fading light of an artist's career trajectory, results in a publication that goes beyond Bollinger's initial mandate.
In achieving critical weight, 100 Essential New Zealand Albums also resonates with historical value; in addition, it becomes part of the lexicon.
Posterity.
It appears Bollinger likes this word more than most.
At its mention, he springs upon it as if it were prey.
"We can have discussions about music which are very satisfying at the time, but they vanish into the ether.
"Whereas if you put something in print, it is there for the public record in a way.
"That is part of the reason for writing the book."
When listening to, or reading, the words of Bollinger, one feels a sense of mission; that here is a man keen to spill a secret, or lift a rock.
"Long before I started writing or was a broadcaster, I got a thrill out of sharing stuff with friends.
"Back at school, it was, 'have you heard this?'."
And the passion still burns, sometimes even despite the occasional doubt.
"I have this fear that having to listen to something is going to kill my enjoyment.
I find I need to balance that, to take a bit of time out."
Bollinger has managed to turn his love of music into a lifestyle.
It has been a gradual manoeuvre.
He was a postie for a decade, "on and off from the age of 19 or 20".
The job allowed time for playing music and a bit of writing, his first article for The Listener appearing in 1988.
He has also written for a range of other publications.
Now, Bollinger largely works from his home, in Point Chevalier, inner-city Auckland.
This weekend, he is off to his old stomping ground, Wellington, to catch up with an old mate and recent Tui winner for his folk album, Chris Prowse, with whom Bollinger helped form little label Red Rocks Records.
It is highly likely more songs will be discussed.
• 100 Essential New Zealand Albums (Awa Press, $40, pbk) is out now.
