So why is Midnight Oil’s Diesel and Dust on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
Midnight Oil was passionate about politics and the environment and the plight of oppressed peoples before it was “cool.” That passion ripples through every moment of their songs, transforming their message into something that’s rousing and emotional and special.
And that’s deep level cool.
Diesel and Dust is the album that broke through in the United States (the lads hail from Australia if you’re not familiar), but all told Midnight Oil has had an incredible career that spans multiple decades now.
If you’re a casual music fan from the states or were around during the 1980s, you might sort of think of the band “as the ones who did that ‘Beds Are Burning’ song.” And it’s not at all a bad choice if one song were needed to represent Midnight Oil’s music and ethos.
I recall being a kid and thinking about what the Australian desert must be like, broiling under 45 degrees (and what is 45 degrees Celsius, anyway? I’d wonder. 45 degrees Fahrenheit is what we’d call football weather growing up in New York).
Out where the river broke
The bloodwood and the desert oak
Holden wrecks and boilin’ diesels
Steam in forty-five degrees
Many years later I was lucky enough to travel to Australia with my wife, and it was an absolutely glorious trip. I felt straight away that I could live in Sydney, something that’s only happened to me a small number of times in my life.
It occurs to me though while writing this piece that there’s a very full circle aspect to that trip coupled with Midnight Oil being one of the earliest and most notable bands to make environmentalism central to their music.
We took a little boat tour around Sydney harbor (again: I can’t emphasize how incredible and beautiful that city is), and it was a fabulous day: around 70 degrees (Fahrenheit), with a light breeze. In fact, I wore a light sweater out on the water, but made sure to apply suntan lotion on my neck and face a few times.
However, I neglected my hands and forearms (had my sleeves rolled up a bit). Because why would I think about that? Well, it turns out that on that latitude of the planet Earth, the UV radiation from the sun is much stronger than it is in the United States. Even when it’s cloudy outside, turns out.
So I was sunburned badly enough that the color of the tops of my hands matched the red wine that I drank several days later.
Lesson learned, but there’s a larger lesson too of course about the delicate balance we have as humans living together on a rock hurling through space. And that was all the more emphasized when we got the once in a lifetime opportunity to snorkel on the waters near the Great Barrier Reef.
Anyway, back to Diesel and Dust. It was an album that was one of my gateway drugs into college rock and, eventually, alternative rock. I’ve talked before about how I took refuge in classic rock during the late 1980s – a time when hair metal reigned supreme – and primarily bands such as U2 and R.E.M. helped bring me back (during those pre-Internet days) to the music of modernity.
And Midnight Oil was very much a part of that as well.
The driving and intense “The Dead Heart” is my favorite song on Diesel and Dust. The acoustic jam vibe and fantastic harmony of the chorus never fails to make me happy.
“Put Down That Weapon” is both rocking and delicate at the same time, somehow, while delivering a powerful anti-war and anti-nuclearization message.
There are really no weak spots on Diesel and Dust. “Sometimes” is rousing with its angular guitar and post-punk vibes, “Dreamworld” is upbeat and catchy, and “Arctic World” is a slower and pretty number that’s another strong call-to-arms to protect our environment.
Some stats & info about Midnight Oil – Diesel and Dust
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Album Rock, College Rock, Australian Bands
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4.5 out of 5 stars
- When was Diesel and Dust released? 1987
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #170 out of 1,000
Midnight Oil’s Diesel and Dust on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Midnight Oil’s Diesel and Dust that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
How can we dance when our earth is turning? How do we sleep while our beds are burning?
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.