Midnight Oil - Diesel and Dust (1987)

Midnight Oil - Diesel and Dust (1987)

Tracklist front / back album covers

Side one

1. "Beds Are Burning"   4:14

2. "Put Down That Weapon"   4:38

3. "Dreamworld"   3:36

4. "Arctic World"   4:21

5. "Warakurna"   4:38

Side two

6. "The Dead Heart"   5:10

7. "Whoah"   3:50

8. "Bullroarer"   4:59

9. "Sell My Soul"   3:35

10. "Sometimes"   3:53

Not included on the vinyl and cassette releases or the original US CD release

11. "Gunbarrel Highway"    3:38

Midnight Oil Band Members / Musicians

Peter Garrett – vocals

Peter Gifford – bass, vocals

Robert Hirst – drums, vocals

Jim Moginie – guitars, keyboards

Martin Rotsey – guitars

Diesel and Dust is the 6th studio album by Australian rock band Midnight Oil, released in August 1987 by SPRINT Music label under Columbia Records. Diesel and Dust was produced by Warne Livesey and the band. It is a concept album about the struggles of Indigenous Australians and environmental causes, issues important to the band. It drew inspiration from the Blackfella/Whitefella Tour of remote Indigenous communities with the Warumpi Band and Gondwanaland in 1986. The album peaked at No. 1 on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart for six weeks.

Diesel and Dust has been critically lauded since its release. Rolling Stone editors named it the best album of 1988 (the year of its United States release), and later ranked it the 13th greatest record of the 1980s. In October 2010, Diesel and Dust was listed at no.1 in the book, 100 Best Australian Albums. In December of 2021, the album was listed at no. 5 in Rolling Stone Australia’s ‘200 Greatest Albums of All Time’ countdown.