ewe2
18-02-2006, 05:43 AM
In the history of Midnight Oil, 1098 is a work of many ironies. It was so successful in artistic terms that it was almost fatal typecasting. Its biggest hit Power and the Passion completely departed from the bands trademark heavy rock sound. It was the band's most political album, yet the invariable memory is of the brilliant musical production. And all of this in 1982, when punk became New Wave and forgot its anger. Australian rock journalism not being what it used to be, it's also hard to get hold of interviews and reviews of the period, so bear in mind that this review is your basic musical necrophilia. The album's reputation is now basically mythic, so we'll have to look carefully at its context to brush away the cobwebs.
But first a word of warning: these guys are not stupid ideologues, they have genuine conflicts and don't claim to have the answers themselves. This kind of honesty and uncompromising willingness to air the issues made them absolute kryptonite in the '80's for Australian politicians. They couldn't be bought. They had such a following at an early stage that they were able to dictate contract terms from their first album, indeed apart from Skyhooks they were the only other totally independent band in the '70's. These guys blew off Countdown and they never suffered for it.
In 1982, I was working in a bank in Townsville. In London England, Midnight Oil were putting the finishing touches on 1098 and preparing to unleash it on the Australian music scene. Then the news of a general election came. In one fell swoop we had a change of government, a surprising new conservation agenda, and all too briefly , a new political awareness. 1983 was the perfect year to launch a political album. Many of the political statements on 1098 had added power from this temporary political attention, even though they were based on some core Australian attitudes.
Musically, this album was a departure for the standard Hirst/Moginie writing partnership of the time. Garrett and even Peter Gifford got credit on several songs, Garretts lyrical input being crucial. Giffo's influence on 1098 is massive, the production finally giving his power and melodic sense their due. Rob Hirst couldn't possibly be louder here, with producer/engineer Nick Launay's rather obsessive dedication to Big Drums, but let's not forget the suprising drum machine track on Power. And even Martin Rotsey's trademark wall of rhythm got attention.
The album opens with a correlation between the national and personal psyches in Outside World, a Japanese-tinged synthesiser-heavy prelude to a classic of Oils pure noise for the fuck of it Only The Strong, claustrophobic, paranoid to the point of screaming and a masterful display of the bands range of dynamics:
When I'm locked in my room
I just want to scream
And I know what they mean
One more day of eating and sleeping....
This and the next song Short Memory also exemplify a key component of Oils music: riding on the riff. Not quite to the point of metal, however as Short Memory shows, in what sounds like a recap of the drum-led theatrics of Armistice Day, but with a more powerful subject matter that is yet to date. The honesty of Read About It must strike Garrett at times, now a politician in his own right:
The rich get richer
The poor get the picture
The bombs never hit you when you're down so low
Some got pollution
Some revolution
There must be some solution but I just don't know
The video for this song has a wonderful sequence of Hirst firing drumsticks off his rider cymbal from a great height during the climax, which is a nice offset to the subject matter and the rather overwhelming montage of unsettling images before the last chorus. For, let us not forget, this was the Age of the Music Video, and the Oils were quick to take advantage of it.
Scream in Blue begins as a searing instrumental overload, possibly one of the great freakouts in rock history which abruptly cuts off into an edgy and intensely personal mood punctuated by drums that actually sound like thunder and a mad guitar feedback that trails like an overheard motorbike. Suddenly we're awakened by sane-sounding accoustic guitars, but don't settle down:
US forces give the nod
It's a setback for your country
Bombs and trenches all in rows
Bombs and threats still ask for more
It isn't that specifically about US Forces, more that they're part of a global syndrome, the methods by which money is the power that truly corrupts. Bear in mind this kind of anti-globalism was years before its time; it was easy to see the US as pinups for economic imperialism, much harder to predict that the government we'd just elected would go on a spree of asset-selling and free-market readjustment (although the current government seems to think its responsible). Midnight Oil's most sardonic comment on the local situation is of course Power and the Passion:
Flat chat, Pine Gap in every home a Big Mac
And no one goes back, that's that
You take what you get and get what you please
It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees
Wonderful stuff, but noone was paying attention to the words of course. It was that seductive drum machine backbeat with Hirst's astounding fills over it and Giffo's jerky funk bass around it. If you can find the extended remix of this, its well worth it just to hear the sheer number of layers hiding in all that funky rhythm. Maralinga however pulls no punches. It's no less funky in its way, but its hard to be groovy and discuss nuclear winter. They haven't come to grips with the Aboriginal aspect of this tragedy, but even Peter can't keep his Christianity out of the issue for once because:
There's only God
There's only Christ
Think I'll lie down for just a while
After this Tin Legs and Tin Mines, even though it continues the theme of paranoia and unwillingness to play the globalization game, is understandably anti-climactic. Somebody's Trying To Tell Me Something closes the album with a full-band composition that is full-throttle Oils yet with a surprisingly cryptic message, summed up by the title. It gets deliberately cut off by the end of the record (this was vinyl, remember?), suggesting that overload was always inevitable.
Overload, paranoia, claustrophobia, xenophobia, its a powerful mixture of themes brilliantly produced to get the message across emotionally even if you're trying to ignore the explict messages. I see 1098 as a panic-attack that got misinterpreted to the point where the band had to reinvent itself to get people to take the message seriously, and was way way ahead of its time not just for Australia but (most ironic of all) globally.
But first a word of warning: these guys are not stupid ideologues, they have genuine conflicts and don't claim to have the answers themselves. This kind of honesty and uncompromising willingness to air the issues made them absolute kryptonite in the '80's for Australian politicians. They couldn't be bought. They had such a following at an early stage that they were able to dictate contract terms from their first album, indeed apart from Skyhooks they were the only other totally independent band in the '70's. These guys blew off Countdown and they never suffered for it.
In 1982, I was working in a bank in Townsville. In London England, Midnight Oil were putting the finishing touches on 1098 and preparing to unleash it on the Australian music scene. Then the news of a general election came. In one fell swoop we had a change of government, a surprising new conservation agenda, and all too briefly , a new political awareness. 1983 was the perfect year to launch a political album. Many of the political statements on 1098 had added power from this temporary political attention, even though they were based on some core Australian attitudes.
Musically, this album was a departure for the standard Hirst/Moginie writing partnership of the time. Garrett and even Peter Gifford got credit on several songs, Garretts lyrical input being crucial. Giffo's influence on 1098 is massive, the production finally giving his power and melodic sense their due. Rob Hirst couldn't possibly be louder here, with producer/engineer Nick Launay's rather obsessive dedication to Big Drums, but let's not forget the suprising drum machine track on Power. And even Martin Rotsey's trademark wall of rhythm got attention.
The album opens with a correlation between the national and personal psyches in Outside World, a Japanese-tinged synthesiser-heavy prelude to a classic of Oils pure noise for the fuck of it Only The Strong, claustrophobic, paranoid to the point of screaming and a masterful display of the bands range of dynamics:
When I'm locked in my room
I just want to scream
And I know what they mean
One more day of eating and sleeping....
This and the next song Short Memory also exemplify a key component of Oils music: riding on the riff. Not quite to the point of metal, however as Short Memory shows, in what sounds like a recap of the drum-led theatrics of Armistice Day, but with a more powerful subject matter that is yet to date. The honesty of Read About It must strike Garrett at times, now a politician in his own right:
The rich get richer
The poor get the picture
The bombs never hit you when you're down so low
Some got pollution
Some revolution
There must be some solution but I just don't know
The video for this song has a wonderful sequence of Hirst firing drumsticks off his rider cymbal from a great height during the climax, which is a nice offset to the subject matter and the rather overwhelming montage of unsettling images before the last chorus. For, let us not forget, this was the Age of the Music Video, and the Oils were quick to take advantage of it.
Scream in Blue begins as a searing instrumental overload, possibly one of the great freakouts in rock history which abruptly cuts off into an edgy and intensely personal mood punctuated by drums that actually sound like thunder and a mad guitar feedback that trails like an overheard motorbike. Suddenly we're awakened by sane-sounding accoustic guitars, but don't settle down:
US forces give the nod
It's a setback for your country
Bombs and trenches all in rows
Bombs and threats still ask for more
It isn't that specifically about US Forces, more that they're part of a global syndrome, the methods by which money is the power that truly corrupts. Bear in mind this kind of anti-globalism was years before its time; it was easy to see the US as pinups for economic imperialism, much harder to predict that the government we'd just elected would go on a spree of asset-selling and free-market readjustment (although the current government seems to think its responsible). Midnight Oil's most sardonic comment on the local situation is of course Power and the Passion:
Flat chat, Pine Gap in every home a Big Mac
And no one goes back, that's that
You take what you get and get what you please
It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees
Wonderful stuff, but noone was paying attention to the words of course. It was that seductive drum machine backbeat with Hirst's astounding fills over it and Giffo's jerky funk bass around it. If you can find the extended remix of this, its well worth it just to hear the sheer number of layers hiding in all that funky rhythm. Maralinga however pulls no punches. It's no less funky in its way, but its hard to be groovy and discuss nuclear winter. They haven't come to grips with the Aboriginal aspect of this tragedy, but even Peter can't keep his Christianity out of the issue for once because:
There's only God
There's only Christ
Think I'll lie down for just a while
After this Tin Legs and Tin Mines, even though it continues the theme of paranoia and unwillingness to play the globalization game, is understandably anti-climactic. Somebody's Trying To Tell Me Something closes the album with a full-band composition that is full-throttle Oils yet with a surprisingly cryptic message, summed up by the title. It gets deliberately cut off by the end of the record (this was vinyl, remember?), suggesting that overload was always inevitable.
Overload, paranoia, claustrophobia, xenophobia, its a powerful mixture of themes brilliantly produced to get the message across emotionally even if you're trying to ignore the explict messages. I see 1098 as a panic-attack that got misinterpreted to the point where the band had to reinvent itself to get people to take the message seriously, and was way way ahead of its time not just for Australia but (most ironic of all) globally.