What's Aotearoa's favourite song? How to vote

We're inviting audiences to join Waiata 100: our search for Aotearoa’s favourite New Zealand song. Music is at the heart of who we are and we want to know what songs move you (or make you move).

I'm in! How does this work?

How did RNZ choose the long list?

RNZ's music team compiled the Waiata 100 list from published popular music from the last 100 years, with input from New Zealand music organisations such as AudioCulture, APRA and Recorded Music NZ.

What makes a song eligible for Waiata 100?

To be considered for the long list, songs need to be substantially written or crafted by New Zealanders, and performed by New Zealand artists (or by artists and groups widely recognised as belonging to our musical heritage). In some cases, we needed to consider factors beyond nationality, including songwriting contribution, creative direction, cultural identity and an artist’s historical connection to Aotearoa.

Cover versions, remixes and songs originally written or released by international songwriters and musicians were not considered for the long list.

An artist/act/group is limited to having just five songs in the list – e.g, Sir Dave Dobbyn may have just five songs as Dave Dobbyn, but he is also eligible for five with DD Smash and five with Th’ Dudes.

What about waiata Māori?

We're also looking for Aotearoa's most loved waiata Māori and have created a long list of around 200 songs to choose from (there are also waiata Māori on the main long list). To be considered for this list, songs must contain at least 50 percent te reo Māori.

Hang on, my favourite New Zealand song or waiata Māori isn't on the list!

It's okay, you have the option to add a song that's not on our long list. When you go to vote, you'll be asked to choose your absolute, all-time, ride-or-die favourite New Zealand song or waiata Māori, but you can also add up to nine others for the main long list and five for the waiata Māori.

One of these can be the song of your choice (if it meets the criteria noted above). For example, if you want to vote for a Dave Dobbyn song that isn’t included in the RNZ long list, you need to select ‘Other’ as your last (10th) choice and then you can enter the Dobbo song of your choice.

What about classical music or jazz?

Why now?

2026 marks the 100th birthday of APRA, which was founded in 1926 to protect and champion the rights of song writers/composers/music publishers whose work was starting to appear on the radio.

When do we find out what is New Zealand's favourite song?

We'll release the top 100-51 songs during the week of 4-9 July, then the top 50 songs will be counted down in a special live Waiata 100 show hosted by Music 101 host Kara Rickard and guests on RNZ National on Friday 10 July.

Why are you asking questions about me?

When you vote for the Waiata 100, you can also opt to tell us a little bit about yourself: where you live, your age band, gender and general music tastes.

This is so we can do fun stuff like compare the musical favourites of older and younger Kiwis, figure out if people in Southland prefer Muttonbirds to listen to as well as eat, or to see if metalheads are secret Brooke Fraser fans. We aren’t collecting any information that will identify you individually and all these questions are optional. Check out all the terms and conditions here.