i love all those old early 80s Aust bands. At the time I really hated Cold Chisel, Aust Crawl and Icehouse but now I hear them and it reminds me of such a great period for local music. I'll take the best songs of any of:
Sunnyboys
Models (Atlantic Romantic, 2 Cabs, all of Pleasure of Your Company, Barbados, Big on Love)
Mentals
Jo Camilerri (Taxi Mary)
Sports/Stephen Cummings
INXS up to and including Kick
Flowers/Icehouse
Aust Crawl (Reckless & Oh Not No You Again esp)
some Chisel
Hunters
bits of Paul Kelly (when I First Met Your Ma, Beggar On the St of Love, Most Wanted Man in the World, cover of Reckless)
BCO's first album was pretty good
Richard Pleasance's first album Galleon is one of the best records anywhere, anytime
Soul Kind Of Feeling by Dynamic Hepnotics was a great summer record
2 great Kiwi bands were Mother Goose (!) and Dragon (another band I hated at the time). I can't think of a band anywhere in the world who had a better comeback single than Dragon did with Rain.