10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Midnight Oil | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B0000025X6
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #207,557 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

This early Midnight Oil release contains many of the songs and stances which they would come to be identified with. A political album, the most unconservative Oils stomp their way through the incendiary US Forces and Power And The Passion. The intense Short Memory tells of their anti-war agenda, while Only the Strong remains one of their most potent tracks. Unbelievably excellent. --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My favorite album of all time., March 22, 2006

By 

No2P2OG (Kentucky) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 (Audio CD)

This is, in my opinion, Midnight Oil's greatest masterpiece, the best rock album ever made, and one of the finest albums of any genre.

OUTSIDE WORLD is one of the most unique songs you'll ever hear. More experimental than rock with a pulsing heartbeat-like bassline, erie keyboards, strings, guitars, and drums. An amzing collaboration between songwriting genius Jim Moginie and recording genius Nick Launay. So beautiful and evocative that I am tempted to say it is my favorite track. The lyrics deal with isolation and economic exploitation. This song sets the tone for the rest of the album

ONLY THE STRONG is the epitome of what rock music is all about coupled with a complexity of song structure that many rock groups lack. The drums are absolutely astounding and the guitars sound enormous. Peter Garrett's vocals are ferocious and this studio recording does succeed in capturing Midnight Oil's live energy is a studio cut. The lyrics seem to deal with the subject of political prisoners or perhaps the eugenics movement which wrongfully incarcerated in mental institutions anyone they deemed to be "febbleminded" or otherwise genetically inferior. The magestic outro is beautiful and unexpected upon first listening.

SHORT MEMORY is a 3/4 waltz time Middle Eastern sounding avant-garde protest song about imperialism and war.The message is "Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it." That message is conveiged loud and clear in what is perhaps Midnight Oil's most universally applicable piece of musical activism. This song warned way back in 1982 that the CIA collaboration with the foreign Mujaheddin Jihadists in Afghanistan was an act of imperialism rather than altruism. The improvised section in the middle of the song is outstanding with middle eastern guitar riffs colliding with dynamic percussive piano. This song and "Don't Ask Me Questions" by Graham Parker were the only songs I could relate to for weeks after 9/11.

READ ABOUT IT is another of Midnight Oil's greatest rock songs. Distorted electric guitar, cowbell, ultra fast drum rolls, a driving beat, and lush acoustic guitar strummery lay down a heavy duty track.The lyrics deal with ignorance, information warfare, the Cold War imperialism of the USA and the USSR, the nuclear arms race, and the exploitation of working class labor by capitalism and communism alike.The compelling chorus points a finger at the ignorant masses that "wouldn't read about it". Essential listening.

SCREAM IN BLUE is half instrumental, half lyrical. The instrumental begins with heavily distorted atonal guitar riffs twisting their way forward toward another middle eastern influenced surf rock escape with outstanding guitar and drum work by Rotsey, Moginie, and Hirst. This cresendos into an a wall of white noise that reaches a fever pitch before being abruptly cut off in an amazing example of producer Nick Launay's electronic studio wizardry. The feedback and squalor is replaced by a clever jazz influened contra bass line by Peter Gifford and a gorgeous piano ballad reminicent of John Lennon. The song sung by Garrett is creepy and ominous yet beautiful, a sad song about unrequited love.

US FORCES is a protest song about the presense of U.S. military bases around the world. Garrett was very involved in protesting Pine Gap, Eschelon, and U.S. nuclear weapons bases in Australia and the Pacific at the time and consequentlly wrote a song about said issues. The song is as experimental as anything else on the album beginning with the three strummed acoustic guitar chord comming to a crecendo in unison with a dynamic synth patch. This is repeated four times and is quite unusual. When garrett begins singing it is all the more dramatic.

POWER AND THE PASSION is one of the earliest examples of a rock band doing hip hop. The song is built around a drum machine rythym. The funky guitars snake in and out of the beat and the bassline is one of the funkiest basslines you'll ever hear. Garrett raps about the Americanisation and commercialisation of Austrailian culture ending with the Emiliano Zappata quote, "It's better to die on you're feet than live on your knees." The song features a freewheeling drum solo by Rob Hirst the ends in the sound of shattering glass and an intense horn driven outro.

MARALINGA is one of The Oils most underrated, beautiful, and poiniant songs. The melodies are gorgeous and the production is visionary. The lyrics tell the sad true story of the Australian Aboriginies of the small town of Maralinga. Maralinga was the site of nuclear weapons testing and uranium mining and many locals died of cancer while refusing to leave their ancestral homeland. The last verse is emotionally overwhelming.

TIN LEGS AND TIN MINES is a soft piano driven song about high technology and the looming threat of an Orwellian police state.
, "turning to terror as the script is read out". Literary Edgar Allen Poe quoting lyrics set to one of the most beautiful melodies imaginable. The strings, piano, guitars, and amazing drums outro nicely as the ominous harpsichord segeway into SOMEBODY'S TRYING TO TELL ME SOMETHING overwhelms the subtlety with sonic terror leading into the strangest surf rocker of all time.

SOMEBODY'S TRYING TO TELL ME SOMETHING is perhaps about the record companies and Midnight Oil's refusal to sellout to their label's A& R's worthless advice while recording their previous album, the excellent PLACE WITHOUT A POSTCARD. This song is crazy. Garrett screams. Gifford solos on a fretless bass. The guitars play surf rock riffs that sound like Pink Floyd gone punk. There are sudden stops and starts and finally this amazing album ends with an example of electronic studio experimentation that is perhaps the most dynamic outro in recorded history. You have to buy 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 to hear what I'm talking about.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Angry Young Men, October 28, 2007

By 

Johnno (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 (Audio CD)

Boy were these guys passionate when they made this album. Alientation, corporatism, grubby politics and Australian culture were all in the Oil's sights. EVERY song is a strong point on the album.

Most reviewers have written that it was one of the best albums that came out of the 80's and I'd have to agree. It was on the Australian charts for around 2 years and mainly stayed there by word of mouth (always a good indication).

Sad thing is, these guys were twenty years too early.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A countdown of doom in a capitalist Cold War world, March 2, 2004

By 

Daniel J. Hamlow (Narita, Japan) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 (Audio CD)

10...

Despite being dubbed the "Bomb Album" as in the A-bomb, it comes up as a subtopic in a few of their songs. Maybe the countdown aspect of the title got it that epithet. No matter, some songs in Midnight Oil's 1982 effort combines social protest with an angry punk-influenced sound, a far cry from their mellower breakthrough Diesel And Dust.

9...

However, "Outside World" is a moody synth piece another harsh life of the aborigines. There's a sense of freedom in the outside world, where nothing can touch anyone.

8...

The madness of an unrewarding, isolated, lonely, and boring life, and the desire to talk to someone is depicted in "Only The Strong," Surely life's more than just "one more day of eating and sleeping"? And the agony of that loneliness is depicted when Peter Garrett yells "When I'm locked in my room/I just want to scream."

7...

"Short Memory" is a brisk history lesson of conquerors/exploiters and the conquered/exploited, whether it be Cortez and the Aztecs, the Belgians in the Congo, or aristocrats in rich Hiltons by the Nile who can get specially brought running water. Most sobering, "The story of El Salvador/the silence of Hiroshima/destruction of Cambodia." Despite these tragedies, the fact that they're forgotten too easily unless one is reminded pertains to that short memory.

6...

"Read About It" is another punkish song of social and world problems, be it the widening gap between the rich and poor, places suffering from revolution and pollution. The growing nuclear stockpiles in the USSR and the military buildup reminds one that this is during the Cold War: "Bombers keep coming/engines softly humming/the stars and stripes are running for their own big show." That latter line is still true today.

5...

The mostly guitar instrumental, overlaid with special effects that suddenly cut off in "Scream In Blue" a soft song about a now-or-never intimate encounter.

4...

"US Forces" is a brisk guitar indictment of the military-industrial-business hegemony that many people dare not challenge. The problem is "everyone is too stoned to start emission/people too scared to go to prison." "Too stoned" may mean addicted to the comfortable life.

3...

The single "Power and the Passion" is a punkish observation on the current lifestyle of urbanized people, "wasting away in paradise" who, yes, go back to nature only as a diversion with appreciating its true beauty, blissfully having fun on the beach, eating junk food, and living in a dog-eat-dog world.

2...

Others like "Tin Legs and Tin Mines," on waiting out for a better tomorrow and the frantic "Somebody's Trying To Tell Me Something" round out the album.

1...

From condemning specific things like US intervention and exploitative globalizing, to social ills, and wide open space invaded by corporations, Midnight Oil's been unafraid to take on those issues, and this album is no different, sporting the intense punk-influenced rhythms as well as slower-paced numbers. Not as polished as the later Diesel And Dust or Blue Sky Mining, but still with its merits, and...

0...