Powderfinger should have been Massive!

Mar 13, 2015
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Even with the first video in 94, grave concern, and the singles following that on the next albums, clearly a global band.

Have been watching a heap of their videos lately and they released the 20th anniversary Internationalist album, and I almost forgot how good they were for a long time, but it’s hard to explain in some instances. I’ll post up some footage, but what a great band! Probably should have been big overseas. Obviously.

I’m just going to put up some random awesomeness from these guys..



note: These Days, the song that many dream to create/write and play live. Where you just smile the whole time because you know it’s a gem!
 
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Mar 13, 2015
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DAF


note: the song that defined the character and atmosphere of the band early on. It almost has a “Tool” style with the bass and guitars. Very cool song, memorable, this is a good live performance!
 
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sdfc

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You could say this about a few Aussie bands.

I'm a big fan of the last song on Internationalist. Can't remember what it's called though.
 
Apr 28, 2008
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They don't have the right feel to me to become a stateside international success, more the dominate-at-home type Australian band. Which is fine, that was the lot of the likes of Cold Chisel & You Am I as well.

I like that we have a score of these massive 'deep cuts' for the curious foreign music buff who'd otherwise never be exposed to them.
 
Apr 28, 2008
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Needed one of their singles to make it into a US movie
It isn't always a guarantee.

For instance:
Go-Between's Spring Rain was in Something Wild. Never really charted there.
Crowded House's Locked Out was in Reality Bites. Their ship had mostly sailed from the US after Chocolate Cake.

Both successful youthful films with famous soundtracks, but neither band really found a sizable audience expansion.

Could definitely imagine something like Sunsets appearing in one of those 2000s beach-holiday comedies.
 
Sep 27, 2008
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Odyssey Number Five is one of my favourite albums.

I was living in the UK when it came out and I was into Doves and other trendy UK bands around that time.

Some of my mates back home were telling me that I should listen to the new Powderfinger album as it's really good and I was like yeah whatever.

I liked Double Allergic and Internationalist, they had some great singles but some ordinary filler songs and I thought the new album would be the same.

Another good but not great Powderfinger album.

Anyway I bought it in an HMV in London in an obscure little Australian section, they weren't big in the UK, I was probably the only one that bought it.

I wasn't disappointed though, what an album, a step up from their first two albums, Powderfinger went from good to great with Odyssey Number Five.

One of my favourite songs off that album.




It wasn't cool to be a Powderfinger fan after Odyssey Number Five though as they were seen as too mainstream and popular but that album featured in the SBS Great Australian Album series so the serious music critics rate it and when you compare Powderfinger to some of the modern day Australian bands they look like The Stones in comparison.
 
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Sep 27, 2008
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They should have been bigger overseas though Powderfinger, they just lacked that breakthrough hit.

They were better than Jet but they had the breakthrough hit.




The same with You Am I in the 90s, they were the best rock band in Australia but Silverchair were bigger in the States.

Silverchair had the breakthrough hit though and they looked like Nirvana.




Hi Fi Way is a far better album than Frogstomp but Tim Rogers wasn't a teenager that looked like Kurt Cobain, he was a much harder sell.
 
Sep 27, 2008
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These two singles off Internationalist were arguably better than the singles off Odyssey Number Five but Odyssey was a better album overall.







If those singles couldn't break them overseas nothing would, hard to believe they didn't get more traction overseas as some of the songs they produced back then were as good, if not better, than a lot songs that were worldwide hits.

I was in the States in 1999 and never heard any of their songs on the radio there, they weren't on the radar there at all while Silverchair were huge.

Must have been frustrating for them, they deserved to be bigger overseas but you could say that about a lot of other great Australian bands while s**t like Dance Monkey by Tones and I becomes a worldwide hit. There is no justice in music at times.
 
Feb 21, 2006
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Double Allergic still my favourite album of theirs but their subsequent albums had some killer songs too.

I went off them a bit from internationalist/ odyssey no 5 as some of their stuff was a bit too "hipster-ish" and they blatantly ripped off a Nine Inch Nails song (we're in this together / we should be together now)
 
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