Cold Chisel – Twentieth Century

By mid 1983, Cold Chisel was in the middle of a No.1 streak as the albums East and Circus Animals had previously reached No. 1.

Circus Animals was a big seller for the band as it had songs like ‘You Got Nothing I Want’, ‘Bow River’, ‘Forever Now’ and ‘When the War is Over’.

But the band was in chaos as Steven Prestwich was fired by the band during a tour of Germany and the band’s new drummer was Ray Arnott, a talented drummer who was part of successful Australian bands Spectrum and The Dingoes in the 1970’s.

Band members had different ideas on the sort of songs they wanted to record and the way they sounded, financial issues also added to the tension as Jimmy Barnes’ request for an cash advance from their record label was rejected based on if he got an advance, everyone else did too.

The band decided to break up in August 1983 and the band performed a last tour called ‘The Last Stand’ (also the name of a documentary in 1984), the band also welcomed back Steven Prestwich for the tour which ended in Sydney on December 15 1983.

The album Twentieth Century was recorded during these times, Ray Arnott played on ten of the thirteen tracks with Steven Prestwich playing on ‘No Sense’, ‘Flame Trees’ and ‘The Game’.

The tensions in the band meant that songs were recorded at different studios with everyone not at the same sessions, the different studios also caused technical nightmares as some studios equipment was incompatible with others.

Songs like ‘Saturday Night’, ‘No Sense’ and ‘Flame Trees’ came from this album with all three songs being popular to this day but band members don’t consider the album to be one of their finest works with Jimmy Barnes stating that he thought the songs were underdone.

Twentieth Century was the band’s third No. 1 album in a row when it was released in April 1984 and it was well supported by four singles that were released between 1983 and 1984.

Hold Me Tight/No Sense peaked at No. 14 in 1983, Saturday Night peaked at No. 11 and Flame Trees peaked at No. 26 in 1984, the music video of ‘Flame Trees’ only had Jimmy Barnes towards the end but the footage is from the ‘The Last Stand’ as the band were not speaking to him by the time of shooting.

The album charted for forty-six weeks and gave the band the perfect ending as they went out on top but like most popular bands, they reformed and in 1998 topped the charts again with the album ‘The Last Wave of Summer before continuing on with tours and album releases.

It could be said that the making and release of Twentieth Century was like The Beatles last albums when they were collapsing yet both bands managed to produce works that are loved by the public even today.