Midnight Oil

[Powderworks] Re: Worst Oil Song (ESM DEFENSE)

Jeff and Jane Scott jscott at iinet.net.au
Fri Dec 12 05:00:48 MST 2003


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael
>
> If I try - maybe I can understand why ESM would be a LEAST fav. Oil album.
>
> THINK>>THINK>>THINK> - MY BRAIN HURTS!
>
> I just love ESM! - It is quite possibly my favorite Oils album. I
> think many
> of the tracks place Bone's Bassline right up front, and the
> Basslines sound
> very melodic in thier own right. I know this has been hashed out
> before, but
> I did not say much back then. On second thought - maybe I do
> understand - it
> is probably the most unique sounding Oils album, almost "Beatleesque". My
> favorite Beatles Album is "Revolver" and the guitar on both albums seem to
> have a lot of the same sound. I think the Oils could have
> recorded "And Your
> Bird Can Sing" or "I'm only sleeping" and it would have fit on ESM
> perfectly. This is not a criticism - Both revolver and ESM have my highest
> seals of approval . Or maybe I am just not awake and feeling
> delusional this
> morning


I guess the thing with this album for me is that it sounds too homogenous -
all the tracks sort of blend into one.  If you take the individual tracks, I
like them more than as a whole album if you get what I mean!  I think
there's too much Bones groove - it dominates the album too much for me.

I have come to like this album more in recent times - for most of the 90's I
couldn't see anything worthy beyond the first two tracks!  But a couple of
years ago I began to really appreciate "Now Or Never Land" which has become
one of my favourite Oils songs, and the alternate version of "Tell Me The
Truth" on The Real Thing made me listen to the original in a different way.
But I'm not big on "Truganini" at all (which is unfortunate as they played
it at every show I saw since 1993 when I would have rather heard just about
anything else!), or "E&S&M", "Bushfire", "Drums of Heaven" or "Renaissance
Man".  Or "Outbreak Of Love" to a lesser extent.

Not saying I don't like these songs or that they're no good - just there's
lots of other Oils songs I'd rather listen to.


jeff...