Midnight Oil: Classic or G'dud!

I've never been a fan of them much, but the Guitarist (called 'Bones'), is a family friend of a friend of mine, so I got back stage passes to what turned out to be their last show at The Forum in Melbourne late last year.

Garret gave a big speech at the Feb 14 Anti-War Rally in Melb (200,000), one day before the Feb 15 rallies the world over. So yeeea...

yeah i think this album is the best set of tunes, and heavy only in a very artful way -- the production emphasises the subtle and non-repetetive elements -- i still love it though i know it completley (and the only song that sucks would be called "US Forces")

ok they dumbed down later for all their big arena hits (and when i saw them live there was just one good song guitar solo etc. in the whole show, in the encore, v. dissapointing) but they'd changed for u2 type demographic by then

CLASSIC!!! I mean, who else dances like Peter Garrett! haha

The Oil's 1979-1985 albums are absolute cult classics down here in OZ. Some of the songs on 'Red Sails...' are like nothing I've ever heard before, like 'When the Generals Talk' and that huge explosion of beautiful sound at the end of 'Kosciuscko'! Brilliant! My favourite Aussie band, bloody legends.

http://www.alp.org.au/people/nsw/garrett_peter.php

(they did seem to think that the story was funny, so bully for them for having a sense of humor.)

10,9,8... = OK Computer
Red Sails = Kid A

fucking classic, until the bottom fell out with that tired-ass-sounding blue sky mining.

That's great.

Similar to Colin Hay's story about someone requesting the "one about the goats".

My favourite track is "no time for games" from the Bird Noises EP.

I think the political stuff and the rock gelled well for them.

The drummer (Rob Hirst?) is phenomenal too, one particular huge solo on Power in the Passion.

I'd have liked Blue Sky Mining to have been recorded with less gloss, but a lot of the songs on there are good and therefore a keeper. The only studio album of theirs I don't care if I ever hear again is Redneck Wonderland... it had no ambition, no direction, no anything. Capricornia was a commendable swan song, though.

"Stars Of Warburton" sounded really nice today. BSM has aged a little better these days (and D&D probably hasn't)

Dud. I threw on Diesel And Dust the other day and it was basically mediocre "college rock" with some guy obnoxiously yelling vague platitudes or suggesting we give the land back to the aborigines. "Sometimes" worked the best as far as the vague platitudes go. I need to listen to my copies of Blue Sky Mining and Earth Sun And Moon to see if they've aged just as horribly. And every time I see them on VH1 Classic they scare me even more.
I'm glad Garrett's decided to stop talking the talk but keeping walking the walk. Though I don't want to see him do that funny walk ever again.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Monday, March 17, 2003 5:12 PM (6 years ago) Bookmark

this is perhaps Miccio's most perceptive post ever.

I'd disagree. D&D really sort of embraces its own timeframe without becoming a victim of it. On the other hand, I hear BSM and all I hear (aside from a few good songs) is 19901990199019901990!

with garrett possibly going onto some sort of leftist politics career (although i haven't seen him involved in anything yet)

innocent times

thing the naysayers have to account for is that they sorta rocked, once upon a time.

Red Sails is far and away my favorite Oils record (and that guitar solo in "Best of Both Worlds" melts my cerebellum).

classic. the dead heart should be the national anthem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTGx59dm3XY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmHco4ie9EE

butts are burning

Watching the Capitol set from the Best of Both Worlds dvd on youtube. So damn good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyqWoq2STjw&list=PL92319EECC1754042

Man, I forget sometimes how insane this band was. That's some nearly-Clash-level shit there.

They don't get their due, at least Stateside. A truly great rock band.

Man, I just got to "Armistice Day" and my god does it rule.

It's a shame that they didn't really break big in the US until their music was on the downswing with D&D, but I can't imagine radio accommodating anything from 10,9,8 or Red Sails. Those records still sound like they're from the future.

Yup. And those early records have aged much better than the crossover trio of Diesel and Dust, Blue Sky Mining and Earth and Sun and Moon. Oddly enough, Breathe sounds better now than it did in 1996.

I love everything up to and including Earth and Sun and Moon. Got no problem with the crossover trio because the songwriting is sooooo sharp, and since 10-1 and Red Sails are so absolutely bonkers, I can't imagine the band had any choice but to reign things in.

Need to relisten to Breathe et al again.

I got off the bus after BSM, one of the most disappointing records I've ever heard. But I was intrigued by the E&S&M singles (as well as their SNL appearance that year). I should probably get caught up.

And the drum sound on Red Sails is one of the most grippingly unique I've ever heard. That whole record's production is so completely spooky.

Diesel remains a good record, but I definitely got off the bus for a while at Blue Sky Mining. Breathe is their best record of the 90s, and then Capricornia was a respectable bow out. BSM, ESM and Redneck Wonderland are all embarrassing.

I like the singles from the three crossover records, but I'm never going to pull them out ahead of the 1980-85 LPs and EPs. Redneck Wonderland is sad, sad stuff. Didn't even have decent singles.

Huh I really like BSM and ESM. What's wrong with them?

I mean, this is great, imo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loX2cvuxMFU&feature=kp

Or this, pretty much classic late-period MO:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdvhiHryIRA

yup, good singles. Bit of a limp album, though.

What are the bad songs on those albums?

The cardinal sin is the production, but there are duff songs a plenty - off the top of my head, "Bedlam Bridge", "Mountains of Burma" and the "Shakers" song on the second side of Blue Sky Mine, "Renaissance Man", the title track and "Now or Never Land" on Earth and Sun and Moon. I'm sure I'd be able to pick out several more mediocre to bad songs if I skimmed through them.

When you compare this to the pre-US breakthrough years, it's amazing how many unmemorable to bad songs those records contain. From 80-85 there are probably about ten in total, but these two albums have 6-8 I'd rather never hear again.

Yeah, this. I actually didn't like anything off BSM; when I heard the single I thought, "I hope this is the worst song on the record." They'd lost all sense of danger and risk

Yeah, maybe they lost the sense of danger and risk, but I still like the songs. I mean, I think they're nothing on the early stuff, but they're still good records. But then, I listen to Combat Rock as much or more than I listen to most Clash records.

I dunno, I don't even mind the production on those later records, though BSM and ESM are sort of at opposite ends of those extremes, from clinical to this weird ramshackle approach, both so odd given the chaos and invention of the early years . What's super weird is that Nick Launay, who did 10-1 and Red Sails, also did ESM, but it sounds so different from that.

I always thought this was a cool song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LlMGBZCtXI&feature=kp

"antarctica" is one of the keepers, for sure. Total jam.

Blue Sky Mining was a total “oof, you trying to be U2?” getting-off-the-bus move for me. BUT at the secret reunion show at some leagues club in 2005, where I went in happy to not even hear anything post-Species Deceases, totally thought while getting buffetted in the mosh “hey even these Blue Sky Mining songs are fucking killing it”

That's because the songs are good!

I haven't listened to Breathe since it came out, but fwiw it was produced by Lanois-associate Malcolm Burn. That to me was a red flag announcing what the band was after. But I have no recollection of what that album sounds like.

it's because the band were on FIRE

“hey even these Blue Sky Mining songs are fucking killing it”

Yeah, I could totally see those songs working much better live. The production on that record was so weak.

Classic. Bought 10 to 1 when it came out, it didn't leave my turntable for months. Watched their evolution from there through the Diesel and Dust album and tour, when they were at their height as a live band. Still one of the most electrifying live acts I've ever seen, albeit much diminished the last time I saw them, circa Redneck Wonderland. The new album so far is . . . good. Doesn't look like I'll get a chance to see this final tour; the only possible date is at the Hollywood Palladium, but I have something else that I likely can't get out of.

I hadn't really paid attention to Garrett's political career, and now I wish I didn't know.

garrett's political career was a disaster really, he clearly sold out to no real benefit & then was thrown under the bus for something that wasn't really his fault

he could have very comfortably fit into the greens without having to compromise but back in 2004 when he was recruited to labor the greens were a much smaller political presence here

Yeah, that's my impression. Really ill-advised. He always struck me as being pretty smart, but it seems like he got completely turned around.

I gotta say, back in the day I really disliked Midnight Oil for their earnestness and bombast, but now, I really dislike Midnight Oil for their earnestness and bombast.

still really really like em. he dngaf if he bugged you afaict. until elected i guess.

It's possible he still views it as the right move. Parachuted into a safe ALP seat and a steady income. Not sure he'd have been pre-selected as effortlessly in the Greens let alone be elected into one of their very limited number of viable (presumably upper house) slots. He might have to have done more tedious unpaid stuff before his parliamentary career even began. Like everyone ever associated with the ALP he's likely convinced himself that "change from within" is/was an actual thing, and preferable to messing about with smaller parties who threaten to stand for something.

That's just fuckin' sad.

that uh, seems like imaginary things but i’m not aussie and have no heroes

It doesn't pay to have heroes, honestly.

To be fair, he had been a candidate for a tiny party decades earlier. I don't really blame him for trying something else tbh. The ALP are hardly the most monstrous option.

Yeah, the Nuclear Disarmament Party, right?

Like everyone ever associated with the ALP he's likely convinced himself that "change from within" is/was an actual thing

This is obviously the calculus he made; he found out that getting fucked by a thousand rats can also happen from within.

The ALP are hardly the most monstrous option.

At the time, this was certainly true. It would be far more of a betrayal if he’d lined up for a parachute after 2018.

He was my local member, and you certainly did see him around and about. Don't think you can fault him for trying, but obviously it didn't turn out well.

Hoping, without any enthusiasm, for a Labor win this time around. Labor is a hollowed out nothing these days, but anything to get rid of Scummo I guess

Ablo’s my local member, imagine how these four years have felt

I have postal ballots sitting here and have toyed with voting informal for the first time. I guess the fact we can now at least let our preferences exhaust before electing Labor in the senate is making the utter inevitability of my HoR ballot converting into a vote for my local Labor candidate seem increasingly absurd and unsupportable lol. It'd be an irrational move. But the idea of my ballot inexorably making its way onto the Labor pile so reliably for soooo many years is really bugging me lately.

Proportional representation in both houses NOW! etc, etc.

I will vote Green and, with zero enthusiasm, preference Labor. However vacuous their current policies are, I don't think I can physically stand another 3 years of the coalition.

^ Basically what I did in the HoR in the end. (No real sensible alternatives amongst the microparties standing in my electorate.)

Just posted it! Thanks Midnight Oil thread on the interwebs for reminding me to vote. :)

Perhaps unexpectedly, this thread has given me a chance to get at least passingly acquainted with the current state of Australian politics. It's both appalling and not surprising that the current state looks very much like that of U.S. politics.