Midnight Oil: Classic or G'dud!

ubiquitous down here in late 70s - early 80s and, i suppose, the acceptable face of stadium style rock. i couldn't stand them but, at least, they weren't Inxs.

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/pic200_web/drp100/p151/p15173bocj2.jpg

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.

* -- That's "The Angels" to all you marsupials in the land downunder.

Having a video does not equate with having a "hit". Ask John Q. Public on the street to name a Midnight Oil song, and if they can do it, it'll invariably be "Beds Are Burning." Yes, they had other songs (so did Devo), but the only one anyone seems to remember is that one.

nope, not SURE -- that's why I said "I think." I mean, I've never seen them mention it in an interview. But there's definitely some stuff on those Angels albums that sounds proto-Midnight-Oil to me.

Best two albums: Head Injuries (1979) and Place Without a Postcard (1981) -- neither of which saw a US release until 1990, after many people quit caring about the Oils at all.

See, that's why I miss your music writing Lee.

Remember when that Screaming Blue Messiahs dude was around and it seemed like bald people were about to seize control?

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!

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.

new doco v good.

yay! the trailer looks great, will def seek it out

Moginie's book, The Silver River, is very good - more about growing up as an adopted kid and later meeting his birth parents as an adult. And also Midnight Oil too of course, but his writing is open and affecting. He's definitely a Rock Guy, but I dug his story...

god I love this thread title, makes my day every time it is bumped, bless you poster Alex in NYC

in the doco Moginie mentions being fucked up by learning he was adopted, but it's flown past - like almost everything else in a film summarizing 50 years in the lives of five (at a time) people. I definitely could have taken a 12-episode series version, with more and more archive footage & incidental cultural history of 70s / 80s / 00s straya, and full songs or sets, and so much more room to dig into the feelings and experiences of the members. never knew that both the first two bassists left after mental breakdowns.

For those who might be interested, there's an interview in the latest Sound On Sound with producer Warne Livesey, providing some details about the recording of "Beds Are Burning".

I recently bought "10.9...1" and "Red Sails" again on CD. I used to have them on cassette many years ago. They both hold up quite well!

Thought the new doc was ... solid, but mostly pretty familiar stuff. I feel like the most compelling material was from the Blackfella/Whitefella doc, though tbh I totally forgot about the Exxon protest in NYC. So, a good birth-to-deather, but I remember the "1984" doc being a bit better. Regardless, a good encapsulation of a galvanizing band.

No talk here re: Peter Garrett's _The True North_ - it's worth the buy. His voice still sounds good. https://pgthetruenorth.bandcamp.com/album/the-true-north

Read Moginie's book, which is pretty good! For some reason I was inspired to listen to "Blue Sky Mining" after, and I was struck for the first time how much of it recalls REM c. the same era (I guess "Green"). I assume the bands toured/performed in similar circles around that time, but there are some other similarities as well, from the use of jangly 12-string to Bones' Mills-like backing vocals. Thinking stuff like "Stars of Warburton":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1b9oGV3apM

Or

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuC_k51NUqU

Or

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz3HShQkdd4

Blue Sky Mine, the song, was playing over the speakers in the supermarket a few weeks ago. I hadn't even thought of Midnight Oil in years, but that song was very welcome in my ears. I've never listened to them beyond that one and Bed Are Burning. I'll have to check out more of their stuff. And wow, just looking over their discography now and they have an EP produced by Francois Kervorkian? Listening to it now and it is not the disco record I hoped, but does sound like very good Midnight Oil. I'm all about this shit.

that was the era of Midnight Oil that i enjoyed most, probably bc of the REM similarities. plus their songs were fun to sing and not totally inane like the chart-topping hits at the time.

if you like the EP then next stop should be the Red Sails In The Sunset LP, which has a lot of the production and arrangement and tonal experiments you’d expect from an FK collab. (Instead of doing a “back to basics” rocking record with him afterward!)

To me, “The Dead Heart” is the big jam of popular era Midnight Oil.

Oh yeah that song rules. 13 year old me was super into it.

"Dreamworld" should've been bigger - I'm surprised to see it even charted in the US because I've never heard it in the wild. But it's just hook after hook until that furious ending

sic, thanks for the suggestion.

TAFKAE, I had forgotten about that one. Listening to it now, I remember it from the time. I bet I would recognize some of the other singles from Diesel and Dust or Blue Sky Mining once I listen to them again.

I just played Diesel and Dust for a friend that somehow never had heard it, and he was shocked at how good it all still sounds start to finish. I'm sure I have said it somewhere on this thread, but I think it is one of the best sequenced albums of all time.

I’d Stan 10, 9, 8… and Red Sails as being the Shabooh Shoobahs to Diesel and Dust’s Kick. Both are still topical and vibrant, re: the usual Oil political and social commentary. You can feel what they’re capable of achieving and it’s not a full surprise when they do.

10, 9, 8… and Red Sails

Or maybe their "War"(s) to "The Joshua Tree" (skipping over "Unforgettable Fire" for the sake of the the comparison).

Those are my two favorite Oils albums.

tween me is loving this conversation

Slap on one of their records and current you would enjoy it even more!

In the meantime, re: peace, man's "I've never listened to them beyond that one and Bed Are Burning," check this shit out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RaMvEk55kQ

I had no idea that Rob Hirst has been battling pancreatic cancer for two years. :(

Nor I. :(

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-20/midnight-oil-drummer-rob-hirst-dies/106249816

Aw no. I wasn’t much of an Oils fan overall but their rhythm section was godlike.

RIP ;_;

:(:( RIP

Saw the Oils a couple times in the 80s and he was easily the MVP of the band

RIP

growing up in 1980s oz even if the oils weren’t your main game (they weren’t mine) they were still undeniable - now any time i see any of that full flight mid-80s footage i am just blown away, can’t imagine how good it would have been to see that live

props to Rob Hirst for helping crowbar some pretty decent politics into the skulls of a generation of aussie meatheads

i saw him play in a small club with blues band The Backsliders, it was a good night

otm

They may be a good candidate for that "the vocalist is a significant hurdle" thread for me. But yeah, one can't *not* respect the politics. My (casual) affection for them possibly peaked as late as 2000, with the 'sorry' shirts at the Olympics. :)

One of the best drummers I've ever seen (who also sang, wrote songs and focused the political direction of the band).

Never a bad time for this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dV6vbb1YqI

Hirst hit sooooooo haaaaaard they used to nail his set to the stage.

As i said upthread very nearly four years ago, the song this band perpetrates in the video directly above this post, and via the best known studio recording, knocked me on my 14 year old ass upon hearing it 41 years ago… it's notable for its coiled tension, which then releases into a maelstrom not at all common in 1984-85 to major label bands marketed to normie U2 fans, but more in line with Dead Kennedys or the SST roster. And then, I heard "Beds are burning" and "the dead heart," which I really disliked, and thus concluded I was not going to get their records.

I am listening to Essential Oils (uggh, lousy title) and I do not hear any other recordings that sound like they want to rip off your head and shit down your neck. This band is vaunted for their live ferocity, and bands vaunted for their live ferocity are very very often recorded in the studio with a mind to capture that live quality. And except for "the Best of Both Worlds," all I am hearing is carefully recorded, meticulous studio rock that, its sincere beliefs and priorities regarding human rights in their own country and abroad notwithstanding, would sound good on multiple radio formats. And that's swell! But I do find it odd that there's not one single other absolute bastard of a careening punk rock single, like its about to blow off the deck of the ship into the thunderstorm. What am I missing?

Hmm. The albums can be pretty fussy, and also pretty proggy, and never quite capture them as they were live. Like, compare this:

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

To this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1BpJZ3zY4U

The early, ferocious stuff simply isn’t recorded in a way that “captures that live quality.”

Try either listening to 10-1, Species Deceases, and Red Sails as intentional recordings of groups of songs, or to live recordings earlier than that. (If Redneck Wonderland doesn’t do anything at all for you on that comp, you can totally sit out the post-1985 oeuvre.)