Internationalist hit Australian shelves on 7 September 1998, and then promptly started flying off them.

Most of the album was recorded and produced by Nick DiDia (Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, etc.) apart from The Day You Come, which was recorded by Lachlan ‘Magoo’ Goold, and Lemon Sunrise by Mark McElligott. The Day You Come would end up being the lead single from the record and also become known as the ‘One Nation song’, despite being written about the treatment of Indigenous Australians.

On Internationalist, it felt like Powderfinger could try pretty much anything and the end result would flaw you. There are a lot of ideas on this record—from cracking tracks like Belter and Don’t Wanna Be Left Out, to the ethereal The Day You Come and Capoicity, to sleek pop ditties like Private Man, to laidback acoustic tunes like Over My Head, and the anthemic Passenger.

But this was a different kind of experimentation to that on earlier effort, Parables For Wooden Ears. Internationalist sounded like a bunch of guys having a lot of fun making music in a room together, without over-thinking the process.

And that energy was contagious. If Double Allergic opened the door for Powderfinger to a wider audience, then Internationalist smashed it off its hinges and brought a legion on new fans with it.

The album spawned 4 singles—The Day You Come, Don’t Wanna Be Left Out / Good-Day Ray, Already Gone, and Passenger—eventually reaching sales of 5x platinum and winning multiple ARIA awards including Album of the Year.

Next release: Odyssey Number Five