Midnight Oil's Messages and Music Still Burn

The weather outside might be frightful in the Northern Hemisphere, but the summer solstice just arrived in Australia. What better remedy for the cold than the fire emanating from Midnight Oil? Unfairly lumped among other Eighties Band and a one-hit wonder in the U.S. (but what a hit Beds Are Burning was), they turned out two-plus decades of socially conscious, punked-up rock.

America was largely spared the polarizing nature of the band. After all, how many Americans can name the Australian prime minister? Whether they are aware of it, most could name this member of Parliament. Australia really hasn’t had a band of that magnitude since -– nor one so rooted Down Under. Wolfmother might hail from Australia, but they anchored their sound to Led Zeppelin’s catalog instead of their home country.

Midnight Oil have aged like wine from a strong harvest. They didn’t fall prey to synthesizers marring too many records from their peak years. Their best material often reflected their Clash-inflected pub rock roots. I struggle to think of recent bands whose sound travels anywhere near Midnight Oil – Peter Garrett will never go down as a great rock singer, but he was always articulate, emotional and as charged as the music surrounding his voice.

Take Best of Both Worlds; it fully lives up to that billing. Behind raging guitar, it offers little hint of its early Eighties origins, becoming a timeless anthem. For all this discomfort their politics aroused in others, Midnight Oil always came across as a band comfortable in its own skin.

Earlier songs like Power and the Passion or Back on the Borderline are the works of raw yet confident band. While a couple of greatest hits packages succinctly sum up the band, the trio of Red Sails in the Sunset, Diesel and Dust and Blue Sky Mining rarely miss the mark. With Blue Sky Mining, Midnight Oil produced the liveliest song ever about asbestos miners sacrificing their health and lives to feed their families. Luckily, a mournful harmonica keeps the song from forgetting its brutal message.

Easily the peak of their popularity, Diesel and Dust sounds as fresh as it did in 1988; its most visceral tune, Dead Heart, opens Side Two with knives drawn and never stops stabbing. Dreamworld swirls in competing guitar arpeggios that coalesce into a wonderfully chaotic whole.

Some late-career highlights equal their early work –- Surf’s Up Tonight presents a seemingly chilled-out Midnight Oil that still simmers with outrage under the surface.

It’s interesting to think of Truganini from Earth, Sun, Wind and Moon, against its contemporaries. Grunge was everywhere, and Midnight Oil stuck to songs of this ilk, with bass-driven verses and sounds born deep in the Outback. The song's subject was another matter, as it references the Tasmanian Aborigines and causes some consternation in Australia.

Although the band called it a day, other members soldier on in new outfits and Garrett now serves as Australia's Minister for Environment, Arts and Heritage, the issues Midnight Oil railed against haven’t disappeared; in fact, more people than ever are aware of environmental degradation.

If only Midnight Oil’s finer works still received such attention.

Comments

[Patty]

see what several former Midnight Oil members are up to musically now-

http://www.musicnewsnet.com/2008/12/new-group-from-midnight-oil-violent-femmes-members.html