 |
tdh |
 |
|
|
Opinions |
|
|
|
Reviews |
|
|
|
20,000 Watt RSL |
 |
20,000 Watt RSL
|
20,000 Watt RSL |
If Paul Kelly is the best songwriter in Australia, Midnight Oil is the best band.
Precisely for that reason, this compilation is damnably frustrating. The band has scads of
good songs from a career that stretches almost twenty years, and quite a few of them appear on this similarly generous eighteen-track, seventy-six minute disc. But unlike the Paul Kelly compilation, which plays to all his strengths, this disc seems almost perversely designed to minimize the overall impact of the Oils, who can be a singularly powerful band in the right context (i.e. live concerts, the Diesel and Dust LP). In fact, come to think of it, this album seems to serve little commercial or artistic purpose. It features two songs from a forthcoming release, Redneck Wonderland, but scatters them around sixteen singles from eight of their albums (and one EP, for good measure), without any semblance of chronological or artistic coherence. If there is one thing that can diminish the power of an excellent album band, it's a career compilation that sacrifices the sustained emotional force of album continuity for musical tossed salad.
About the only notable thing that this compilation does accomplish is present American audiences with a decent skim through the early Midnight Oil catalogue, before they reached a broader audience with their 1988 breakthrough album, Diesel and Dust. The band released three rough Australia-only full-lengths and the Bird Noises EP between 1978 and 1981, and while Columbia re-released them following the band's mainstream success a decade later, most casual American fans won't have heard such tracks as Head Injuries' "Back on the Borderline" or Place Without a Postcard's "Don't Wanna Be the One." Seven of the tracks on this release precede the band's mainstream acceptance, and given the sometimes scattershot quality of the band's early records, this could be seen as generous. While there are no tracks from the band's first self-titled record or Bird Noises, every other Midnight Oil release save the live compilation Scream in Blue has at least one song on 20,000 Watt R.S.L. 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1's anthemic "Power and the Passion" and "Hercules," from the 1985 Hiroshima-themed EP Species Deceases represent the band at its most strident, for better or worse, while "Don't Wanna Be the One" betrays its age with some very new-wavey keyboards. At this point in time, the Oils' musical palette hadn't yet expanded to include the horns that added so much dramatic heft to later tracks like "Beds Are Burning," so what you get is rather simple: loud, fast songs brimming with moral indignation and topped off by Peter Garrett's inimitable vocals.
While this compilation's commitment to the band's early material is admirable, the necessary upshot is that the band's masterpiece, Diesel and Dust, is rather underrepresented. "Beds Are Burning" and "The Dead Heart" are absolutely essential, and the potent "Dreamworld" is present, but that's it. No "Warakurna" or "Put Down That Weapon." Without the needed context of the album format, the songs that do appear on 20,000 Watt R.S.L. are somewhat enfeebled. The albums following Diesel and Dust are somewhat destined to fall short of that high standard, although both Blue Sky Mining and the more pop-oriented Earth and Sun and Moon have fine songs to commend them. The former has the ringing title track and the fiery "Forgotten Years," both of which certainly merit inclusion, but I can't begin to understand why a compiler who only saw fit to include three songs from Diesel and Dust found Blue Sky Mining worthy of four. It boggles the imagination. Earth and Sun and Moon and 1996's Breathe are largely ignored, which is similarly confusing. Only "Truganini" and "Surf's Up Tonight" appear, and even I - not a huge fan of the band - could think of some others that might be more appropriate.
Lest we forget, there are two new tracks on this compilation, to be released on an upcoming record. If they are representative, then it appears that the Oils have listened to U2's Achtung Baby far more times than was wise. "What Goes On" has some dense industrial drumming and rather underwhelming lyrics, while "White Skin Black Heart" is direly shy on melody. I've listened to this record quite a few times now, and everytime the track comes on, I always wonder whether or not I've ever heard it before. That's not an auspicious harbinger for Redneck Wonderland's success.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Reviewer: Michael Zwirn