So why is Midnight Oil’s 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
This brilliant deep from the crate Midnight Oil gem (at least for us stateside Yanks) pulls me back to my sophomore year at Binghamton University.
During my latter high school years, Midnight Oil had become an important part of my transition beyond the “classic rock” that had sustained me through my roughest adolescent years, and along with bands like R.E.M. and U2, they were my entry points into alternative and college rock.
Diesel and Dust and especially Blue Sky Mining were my Oil mainstays during those years, so when I stumbled across a used copy of a “before my era” Midnight Oil album on CD with the wild, slightly unsettling album title of 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1, I snatched it up forthwith.*
* This was pre-Spotify and, in fact, “websites” were just becoming known as a thing at all along that long road called the information superhighway, kids.
It’s an album that I associate with getting in really good shape for the first time in my young adult life. I’ve always struggled with my weight, and my college girlfriend – the first serious relationship I had ever been in – encouraged me to take up jogging. I’m grateful that she did, as to this day I find long, music-filled aerobic sessions, playlist blasting, to be both essential and meditative.
These memories tie specifically to “Power and the Passion,” which on some days is my favorite Midnight Oil song of them all.
Also, be warned, my friends: to this day that driving, post-punk guitar riff can get jammed into my musical brain for weeks at a time.
What’s always fascinated me (and really, what topic is more fascinating to any of us?) is that as a writer and someone passionate about ideas and language, I don’t typically process song lyrics literally in terms of this is what the song’s about and therefore I’m going to think about it that way.
There are exceptions of course – I mean “War,” by Edwin Starr does not fuck around with regard to what it’s laying on you, right? – but usually I kind of interpret the vibe of songs I really like and listen to often, and that vibe interpretation settles into its meaning for me personally, and my connection to it in some unique and particular way.
Which is all to say that while I’m fully aware that Midnight Oil’s lyrics are most often about serious issues of politics, inequality, and climate change (all things that cause me to admire this band of Aussies all the more), I connect “Power and the Passion” to unlocking something inside myself, which I think is connected to getting into great shape in college. And that act of getting fit fused with with my becoming much more outgoing and social, eventually leading me to become both a Resident Advisor junior year and then radically changing course and joining the rugby team senior year.
So in some (strange?) small way, Midnight Oil had a profound impact in my life by way of one song they produced back in 1982. And I’ll also add that I am sure the band had a subtle but important influence on my overall political education as well.
And then when I look at 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 as a whole, there’s really not a dull moment anywhere on the album.
Coming off Place Without a Postcard, released in 1981, Midnight Oil were still finding their international footing, but with 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 they locked into a sharper, more political, and musically experimental identity. The production from Nick Launay (known for work with post-punk acts like Killing Joke and The Birthday Party) gave the band a harder, almost industrial edge while still keeping their anthemic, wide-open Australian rock style intact. In hindsight, this record foreshadows the global breakthrough of Diesel and Dust (#170 of best 1,000 albums ever), and you can already hear the scaffolding of taut, socially urgent rock that would explode worldwide with “Beds Are Burning” just a few years later.
“Outside World,” the album opener, starts out mysterious and slightly eerie before segueing into something of a synth-y number powered by keyboard-driven arpeggios and Peter Garrett at his crooning-est (if you could call it that?). It’s an unusual choice for Track 1, but one I dig because it’s an album that never lets you feel assured that you know what’s coming in the best kind of way.
“Only the Strong” then revs up the hard rock that’s staccato and chugging in sharp alternating bursts while “Read About It” meshes rock, pop, and a super memorable chorus in a way that would make this one slip in seamlessly on other top tier Oil albums like Red Sails in the Sunset (#71).
“Maralinga” is a wonderful deep cut, slow and powerful and Midnight Oil sounding at their most ’80s.
10,9,8… is not the kind of album for everyone, and it might not even be for casual Midnight Oil fans. But I’m wagering some of the old school Oil heads still get it.
Some stats & info about Midnight Oil – 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Album Rock, Hard 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 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 released? 1982
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #55 out of 1,000
Midnight Oil’s 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Midnight Oil’s 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
You take what you get to get what you please.
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.