Midnight Oil - "My Country"

Let's face it - if you grew up in Australia in the 1980s, you grew up with Midnight Oil.

Most people remember the band's glory days from back then. Radio Triple M won't bloody well let us forget 'em. But one thing the revisionist commercial radio networks won't tell you is how strong the band were (at times) in the 1990s.

The band were most intense in the 1980s, releasing fiery records like "Place Without A Postcard" and "10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1" in the early part of the decade. With "Diesel and Dust" and "Red Sails In The Sunset" they tempered the sound slightly, but not the rage. Ditto "Blue Sky Mining" in 1990, but the songs just weren't that great.

After a live album in 1992, The band issued what is, in this writers opinion, is the last consistently great Oils LP, "Earth and Sun and Moon". The songs are beautifully composed, lushly arranged and performed, alternately soulful and tender or slammingly heavy as they need to be. The band toured the world on the back of the record, playing Glastonbury in the UK, on the Jools Holland Show, and doing MTV Unplugged (see below).  Ironically, it also happens to be a record that is criminally underrated in the band's discography.

Cruising around town on the weekend listening to the band's recent Essential Oils compilation in the car, the second single from the album "My Country" always gets turned up loud...

...right or wrong. Enjoy!