Australian Music, Pt. 2: Power And Passion

Artist: Midnight Oil

Album: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

Year: 1982

Imagine the aggressive politics of Rage Against The Machine. Then weld them onto the radio-ready rock of early U2. And then, just for kicks, have a screaming, bald giant of a man front this hypothetical band. This is Midnight Oil. Dedicated to their concept of music-as-political-activism, Midnight Oil spent three decades rockin’ in the name of environmentalism, anti-nuclear proliferation and indigenous rights for Australian Aboriginals. However, their message fell on mostly deaf ears until 1982, when the awkwardly named 10, 9, 8… (many prefer 10 To 1 as an abbreviated title) blasted to #3 on the charts, thanks mostly to “Power And The Passion”. The song was a unique distillation of a very Australian outlook on the global issues of the 1980s, making Midnight Oil one of the first bands to deal with uniquely Australian issues instead of rehashing American and British themes. The album also featured screeds aimed at American foreign policy (“US Forces”) and the testing of nuclear warheads on Australian soil (“Maralinga”), shoving strongly political and controversial subjects to the top of the pop charts. 10 To 1 was only the beginning for Midnight Oil, as they would continue to push their issues, scoring big in the US in 1987 with “Beds Are Burning”. Finally, in 2002, frontman Peter Garrett decided to put his money where his mouth was: he ran and was elected to the Australian House of Representatives.

Artist: The Triffids
Album: Born Sandy Devotional

Year: 1986

If Midnight Oil represented the political in Australian 80s rock, the Triffids represented the personal. Taking their name from a sci-fi novel about plants that eat people, the Triffids started out as a sort of Australian answer to Echo & The Bunnymen (as if such a thing was necessary). However, on 1986’s Born Sandy Devotional, frontman/songwriter David McComb brought ten incredible songs to the table, conjuring up both a general atmosphere of lonely romance and images of growing up on the beaches of Perth. “Estuary Bed”, with lyrics about “children walking back from the beach, sun on the sidewalk burning their feet”, resonated with the Australian way of life. Then again, Born Sandy was also surprisingly dark, featuring not just one, but two songs about suicides: the eerie “Tarrilup Bridge” and the hands-down gorgeous “The Seabirds”, in which we learn about a figure so tragic, not even the seagulls would touch his body laying on the beach. However, the song that gets the most attention is “Wide Open Road”, a gloriously epic (if slightly dated) anthem to Australia and heartbreak, showcasing the Triffids’ unique use of pedal-steel guitar. The story of the Triffids would ultimately be a tragic one, as McComb died in 1999 from complications surrounding a heart transplant. However, Born Sandy Devotional was the album that assured the Triffids would always have a place in Australian music history.