Consumer Guide Album

Midnight Oil: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 [Columbia, 1983]
Figures that a major-label, major-management band expressly obsessed with nuclear holocaust and man's inhumanity to man should smell slightly progressive, which I do not use in the lefty sense. The multiplex structures, emphatic mix, and sardonically melodramatic vocals all add a pompous air to music that comes on as uptempo rock and roll. Message: everything would be quite all right if human beings weren't such stupid fools--and major power brokers have nothing to do with it. C+