What?: Midnight Oil's fourth album.
Why?: I have all of MO's albums, but this was one of the first I bought on CD. I own "Power and the Passion" as a 7" single, and I had the album on tape forever.
Tell me more!:
My favourite MO album. Bias. It's been on my "top ten albums" list (when I've had such things) pretty much forever.
The guitar riffs, the drumming, the background sound effects, the lyrics. It's all perfect.
It carved into my musical language how music should sound. Drums don't have to be 4/4 constants in the background. All spaces should be filled with a noise, unless emptiness is the aim. Dropping end-song into a pop strummy ditty is fine (Only The Strong), as are epic noise intros (Scream In Blue), piano solos (Short Memory), drum solos (Power & The Passion), and ending albums with infinitely held notes (Somebody's Trying To Tell Me Something).
Meanwhile the more straight hits just plain rock (Read About It, US Forces, Tin Legs & Tin Mines).
My only complaint is that maybe Maralinga is a bit too weird. I love that it is weird, but perhaps it's just a bit long and not varied enough.
9/10
