VARIOUS ARTISTS: Standing on the Outside: The Songs of Cold Chisel

Released: 2007


Cold Chisel is one of the most important bands in the history of Australian rock music, a group that was so popular they actually sold more records after they split up than they did when they were together. During the 1980s, Cold Chisel probably got heard on more radio stations, more jukeboxes and at more karoake bars around the country by more people than any other Aussie artist, including AC/DC. This level of over-exposure probably led to a dilution their true importance as one of nation's defining rock acts. Indeed, as the 90s really got going, admitting to being a fan of Cold Chisel or that doyen of rock party animals, Jimmy Barnes, was akin to admitting to being a flanno-wearing, VB-slurping, Collingwood-supporting redneck bogan.


Almost another decade later however, and Cold Chisel fandom has enjoyed another resurgence with their songs being exposed to a new generation of listeners through the auspices of shows like Australian Idol and people like Tim Rogers teaming up with Barnesy. This long overdue tribute album was the culmination of this resurgence, and the results could hardly have been better. Standing on the Outside was one of the best albums of 2007, and had me singing along to several artists whom I would normally never even listen to. While quite a few are relatively faithful to the originals -- You Am I's "Houndog" for example, and "Rising Sun" by The Living End -- those that have been adapted to a particular artist's style are the real highlights. Troy Cassar-Daley turns "Bow River" into an upbeat country rocker and Paul Kelly offers a stripped-down, rootsy reading of "Khe Sahn", giving it back much of the meaning that so much over-playing had sapped from it. "Choir Girl's" careful treatment of abortion was always going to be given a paricular poignancy when sung by a female, and Katie Noonan does precisely this. The fact that virtually all of these tracks convert so well only emphasises how great these songs were in the first place.

Only occasionally does the album take a wrong step, and when it does it almost spoils everything. Alex Lloyd's strange acoustic reading of "You Got Nothing I Want" completely misfires. It just doesn't come across as the venomous pouring of spite that was the original and Something For Kate's rendering of "When the War is Over" in their typical gloomy style completely sucks all the hope out of it. If the other songs here weren't as good as they are, these two (particularly Lloyd) could well have killed the entire project. On every other level, however, Standing on the Outside is a masterpiece, one of the best tribute albums ever.

1. "Rising Sun" - The Living End
2. "Standing on the Outside" - Dallas Crane
3. "Forever Now" - Pete Murray
4. "No Sense" - Ben Lee
5. "My Baby" - Thirsty Merc
6. "Water Into Wine" - Evermore
7. "Khe Sahn" - Paul Kelly
8. "Bow River" - Troy Cassar-Daley
9. "Saturday Night" - Grinspoon
10. "Houndog" - You Am I
11. "Choir Girl" - Katie Noonan
12. "When the War is Over" - Something for Kate
13. "You Got Nothing I Want" - Alex Lloyd
14. "Cheap Wine" - Shane Nicholson
15. "Four Walls" - The Waifs
16. "Flame Tress" - Sarah Blasko
17. "Janelle" - Augie March
18. "Shipping Steel" - The Flairz feat. Dave Larkin of Dallas Crane

Rating: 92%

COLD CHISEL: East

Produced by Mark Opitz and Cold Chisel
Released: 1980

In mid-1977, Cold Chisel was a hard rocking blues band that couldn't get a record deal. By the end of 1980, they were the biggest-selling act in the country. This album is why. A finely-crafted slab of contemporary radio-friendly rock and pop, East never faltered from its opening seconds and remains to this day one of the best Australian albums ever made.

Cold Chisel's previous album Breakfast at Sweethearts had taken the rough edges off the band's brash sound and begun to display its pop sensibilities. With East, the slick production of Mark Opitz enhanced them even further. That all five of the band's members contributed songs for the first time also helped to create a bunch of tunes that continue to resonate through the national psyche.

East succeeds because its subjects are so familiar to its audience. They are simple songs about the everyday experience: "Every night when I come home/I settle down to prime-time limbo," sings Jimmy Barnes in "Ita"; on "Standing on the Outside" he dreams about robbing a TAB and setting himself up in a personal Paradise somewhere. Other songs are about dreams come unstuck, like the jaded protagonist of "Cheap Wine", who just leaves it all behind for "cheap wine and a three days' growth". "Four Walls" is a sorrowful piano ballad about life behind bars and the emotional "Choir Girl" follows a young woman through an abortion.

Of course it wouldn't be Cold Chisel without straight out rocking, and the pensive mood of the ballads is balanced by the brash rockabilly of Barnes' "Rising Sun", the smouldering, political "Star Hotel" and the ragged "My Turn to Cry". Every song was memorable, as East struck the perfect balance of all the band's moods. Ian Moss' "Never Before" became the first song ever played on Triple J, Barnes still performs "Rising Sun" in his live shows and Phil Small's sweet pop ditty "My Baby" remains a radio staple to this day.

28 years later, East is still the perfect Australian rock album.

1. Standing on the Outside
2. Never Before
3. Choir Girl
4. Rising Sun
5. My Baby
6. Tomorrow
7. Cheap Wine
8. Best Kept Lies
9. Ita
10. Star Hotel
11. Four Walls
12. My Turn to Cry

Rating: 100%