Verbalism Personified

Trading Places

Last night, I tossed my internet-downloaded tracks of Internationalist by Powderfinger. Taking delivery of this illusive disc at long last completes my collection of the band's commercial discography.

I didn't warm up to Powderfinger immediately when they released Internationalist in Nineteen Ninety Eight. Effectively their break-through album, Triple-M would play their songs to death while I'd be driving to work in the morning.

So until last night, I had only a few cheesy sounding MP3s from the album in my possession. Odyssey Number Five and Vulture Street had long since made up the shortfall.

Settling down to re-visit these tracks in their original glory, I found a few gems that were, for some reason, overlooked by the Top 40 and Chart-Buster programmers. The Day You Come, I Don't Want To Be Left Out and Good-Day Ray were definitely well-worn favorites. None the less, the level of instrumentation betrayed the amount of effort that went into the album. Coming out from grossly inadequate MP3s, listening to these songs again was a re-discovery of the road that brought Powderfinger to where they are today.

Trading Places is one such gem. Peeling away the layers, you can pick out the organ pedals and piano behind the strings and woodwinds. A haunting song about betrayal and accountability, its any wonder why this wasn't released as a single. But then again, the real gems seldom are.

posted by Teutoburg @ 1:14 AM