Internationalist (album)

Internationalist (album)

Internationalist is the third studio album by Australian alternative rock band Powderfinger. It was released on 7 September 1998 and was certified five times platinum in Australia. Numerous songs on Internationalist were politically and socially influenced, although the band denied it was a deliberate motif. The album produced four singles for the band; all appeared on Triple J’s Hottest 100 poll in two consecutive years.

About Internationalist (album) in brief

Summary Internationalist (album)Internationalist is the third studio album by Australian alternative rock band Powderfinger. It was released on 7 September 1998 and was certified five times platinum in Australia. The album produced four singles for the band; “The Day You Come”, “Don’t Wanna Be Left OutGood-Day Ray”, “Already Gone” and “Passenger”, which all appeared on Triple J’s Hottest 100 poll in two consecutive years. Numerous songs on Internationalist were politically and socially influenced, although the band denied it was a deliberate motif. Internationalist received fairly positive reviews in the Australian press, and cemented Powderfinger’s position on the local music scene. However, the album failed to launch the band in the overseas market. The band did not intend for it to be the first and only single, and released it when they could not decide on anything else. The first single from the album was a politically and Socially influenced song, and spent nine weeks on the ARIA Charts at #25. The second single was a double-side, with the second side being a musically musically offensive song, and the third being a more traditional rock song. The third single from Internationalist was a ballad, and was the band’s last single before the release of their second album, Odyssey Number Five. The fourth and final single, a cover of The Beatles’ “I Can’t Go for That”, was the last single to be released before the band released their third album, Odyssey Number Five in September 1998.

The last single from Internationalist was the ballad “I Can’t Go For That”, which was the first single to be released after the success of Double Allergic. The song was written by Bernard Fanning and was recorded at Melbourne’s Sing Sing Studios, with producer Nick DiDia for the first time. Powderfinger spent only one month in the studio, and the band used the extra time to play table tennis, which was their recreation of choice during the Internationalist and Odyssey Number 5 recording sessions. Fanning said the album’s title refers to escapism—namely, the ability that an ‘internationalist’ has to escape from racial and social tension. He said the band didn’t intentionally discuss political issues, but that the songs, as his emotional responses to recent events, could inevitably be interpreted as being political. John Collins described the album as not being as easy listening as their previous work, and that it contained numerous experiments in songwriting that they had not put into previous albums. Collins and Fanning acknowledged that the album’s experimental nature could lose them some old fans, but the pair drew parallels with bands such as U2, who had constantly re-invented themselves.