Midnight Oil - Bird Noises - Expanded Version (1978-1982)

Yep, I'm going to apply my usual "stray tracks" approach to Midnight Oil. I think they're a great band, and they aren't as appreciated as they should be these days. I used to think the band didn't have much in the way of worthy stray tracks, but it turns out I just wasn't looking hard enough. This is the first of four stray tracks albums I've put together. Plus I have some other stuff (live and/or acoustic) to post here eventually.

In 1980, Midnight Oil released an EP called "Bird Noises." This is that, plus much more. I'm not a fan of listening to just an EP, since it's too short to be a satisfying listening experience. The "Bird Noises" EP is only 15 minutes long. I've found some other songs from that same era to turn this into a 39-minute long album.

In 2017, Midnight Oil reunited after 15 years. To celebrate that, they put out two very extensive box sets full of rarities. Unfortunately, those didn't sweep up all their good rarities. Three of the songs here come from one of those box sets, but three more are still officially unreleased. Those three are studio outtakes that somehow have been bootlegged. Their sound quality is pretty good, though a notch below the rest here.

One of those three songs is "Bakerman." That's a song from the band's 1984 album "Red Sails in the Sunset." But a surprise twist is that the version on that album is an instrumental and the (officially unreleased) version here has vocals.

Note that for this album, and the other Midnight Oil stray tracks albums I've compiled, I didn't just include all the stray tracks I could find. There are many non-album songs that I don't think are that good, including some from the 2017 box sets. In my opinion, the songs here make up a solid album.

One last comment: Midnight Oil is known for almost never doing any cover songs, but I've actually found a bunch of covers for their stray tracks albums. This album has two. The first song "Take Me Down Easy" was originally done by Jo Jo Gunne, and the last song "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" was a 1960s hit by the Animals.

01 Take Me Down Easy (Midnight Oil)
02 No Time for Games (Midnight Oil)
03 Knife's Edge (Midnight Oil)
04 Wedding Cake Island [Instrumental] (Midnight Oil)
05 I'm the Cure (Midnight Oil)
06 Bakerman [Vocals Version] (Midnight Oil)
07 I Want to Live Here (Midnight Oil)
08 Parking Station Blues (Midnight Oil)
09 Ghost of the Roadhouse (Midnight Oil)
10 We Gotta Get Out of This Place (Midnight Oil)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376605/MIDNGHTOL1978-1982BrdNisesAltrnte_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I simply used the cover of the "Bird Noises" EP.