Popdose Flashback ’90: Midnight Oil, “Blue Sky Mining”

Released on February 25th, 1990, Midnight Oil’s Blue Sky Mining had a lot to accomplish and just as many parties to offend. Their previous album, Diesel and Dust (1988), was a major hit, pushing the group into the American spotlight for the first time, and many thought it was their first release. (Actually, it was their sixth; their debut arrived in 1978.)

Because the band was in the strange position of suddenly being new to a massive alternate audience, it’s no surprise that Blue Sky Mining sounds so close to its predecessor, and all indications seem to point to that being intentional. Prior to their American discovery, the band was a highly political, charged-up surf/punk/pop collective with a wide streak of experimentation hidden deep down (check out 1984′s Red Sails in the Sunset for an example). By contrast, Mining sounded almost tame, excepting the ferocious, dire “Mountains Of Burma.” The band — fiercely Australian, which had always been a vocal point of pride with frontman Peter Garrett — didn’t sound as they had on previous recordings, which might have alienated some longtime fans. The insinuation that they were smoothing out to court their new audience couldn’t have gone over too well, either.

In many ways, I think Blue Sky Mining is a better album than Diesel and Dust. It isn’t a happy, fiery set of songs and, in many ways, has the demeanor of a breakup versus a breakout disc. Political considerations always found a home in the band’s music, as the title cut clearly indicates within the confines of a class struggle drama.  “River Runs Red” is less an ecology protest than a requiem. The lyrics, “So you cut all the tall trees down / you poisoned the sky and the sea / You’ve taken what’s good from the ground / but you left precious little for me” find no easy conclusions or happy endings. There is a distinct sense of damage done, and a feeling that it can’t be undone. These issues were always on the minds of the members, especially for Rob Hirst and Jim Moginie, who, with Garrett, wrote most of the songs.

The quelled righteous rage of early releases, and the sense of impending loss of optimism, combine to make beautiful if somewhat haunted songs. Highlights include the anthemic “One Country” that, toward the end of the tune with swelling orchestration and an almost funereal marching beat, bring to mind a sense of patriotism after the fact. It is a cry for that same optimism and national unity that suddenly became elusive. The last track, “Antarctica,” has the band seeking the last untainted place on Earth, quickly coming to terms with the futility of fighting their fight, be it in Australia, on the industrialized shores of America, or anywhere else on the planet. “There must be one place left in this world / where the skin says it can breathe / There’s gotta be one place left in the world / A solitude of distance and relief.”

I was warned off of the disc by my friends. They came to know the band through Diesel and Dust, felt that the tonal similarity with “Blue Sky Mine” meant another collection of rough and tumble, rootsy rock tunes, and were turned off by the chilly mood of the piece. I eventually came to hear it by borrowing it from the public library, back when the public library wasn’t afraid to stock relatively new pop music releases, certainly before the Parental Advisory logo was a warning and not the seal of approval it has become. Few of those discs I borrowed received more than two or three plays, and only two of them wound up inspiring an immediate purchase: Spilt Milk from Jellyfish, and Blue Sky Mining.

The band continued on beyond this album, putting out interesting work but never achieving the degree of popularity they attained in 1988. They issued Capricornia in 2002, but by the end of that year Garrett resigned from the band. In June 2005, Garrett was appointed Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Reconciliation and the Arts. Controversially, he announced he would be a “team player” for the Australian Labor Party, going against several of the stands he took in his music, not the least stinging being several reversals on environmental issues and a willingness to approve a major expansion of South Australia’s Beverley uranium mine. How strange a path to that moment from those songs of resignation and disapproval.

Blue Sky Mining is available from Amazon.com.

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