Odyssey Number Five

this is a masterpiece!! For me is the best Australian band and this the best album of any band from Australia... All songs one by one perfect.. top 3 favorites with 1st leading is Up & Down & Back Again 2.We Should Be Together Now 3.These Days My Happiness is close to top 3. Well done to the person put it here..You have excellent taste in music..Cheers from Greece!!!

This is what the user list was made for. A solid album by a band that isn’t well known that someone knows is a treasure and should be shared. Not every album is gonna hit but it’s better than getting some that feel like obvious jokes. This aussie band created such a cohesive 90s rock album that’s worth plenty of listens. This was solid. My happiness and my kind of scene are heavy replays. Excellent album. 8.5/10

Odyssey Number Five by Powderfinger is an ok rock album with lots of slower songs. Not bad or awful, but also not outstanding in any way.

Really solid rock album. I just sat back and chilled to this and it made for a really nice evening.

Genius. Always nice to see more Aussie representation too

Enjoyed the album. But no outliers really

Catchy in places but I was never a huge Powderfinger fan. They had some bangers on earlier albums, but by this point they were going pretty soft and getting very samey. Still, my happiness is a great song. These days has a really great hook, too. Always been a fan of that song. 4/5.

Rating: 8/10 Best songs: Waiting for the sun, My happiness, The metre, Up and down and back again, Thrilloilogy

I am a big Powderfinger fan, for a non-fan, but the best album from any of them is Bernard Fanning's solo debut Tea & Sympathy. This album is good but has holes - even Fanning thinks a couple songs are so-so. The last 3 songs in particular drag and the opener Waiting for the Sun is sort of up and down. They nail melodic melancholy perfectly with the second song My Happiness (perhaps their most well-known), which feeds perfectly into The Metre and later My Kind of Scene and These Days. All beautiful tracks. Like a Dog is the one song that doesn't quite fit this album, being more rocking, but it's solid. I mean, the best songs are 5s but overall this album is closer to a 3.5. I'm rounding up to 4 because I do really like these guys.

Though there seems to be quite a bit straight ahead rock and roll on the list, i was pleasantly surprised by this and enjoyed the sound. Really enjoyed Waiting for the Sun and Up and Down and Back Again, though the album was pretty strong start to finish. Will come back to this.

This is nice songwriting. Vocals, instrumentation, and production are all fine. That’s not really where their focus was, though. Lyrics and chord progressions and things of that nature are where this thing really shines. I enjoyed it, but it isn’t the most exciting record. Not quite by the book, but they aren’t doing anything very experimental. Just good quality, inoffensive songs. 4/5

Some great variety keeping a fun throughline

Competent rock from a band I've never heard, or heard of. I enjoy this little venture for its ability to introduce me to new artists and music. I'm not unhappy about having a listen to this. Solid, respectable 4.

This was pleasant and cool for the time spent. Couple keepers.

Förvånansvärt bra. Tycker man kan ge albumet fler chanser.

Some Aussie representation! Bear with me. This an interesting one for me. Massive early influence, and—at least in my opinion—one of the “big four” of ’90s Australian rock alongside Silverchair, Something for Kate, and You Am I. I’ve got a long history with them. I worked for their publisher, saw them live 20+ times, and was cheering when they topped the Hottest 100. I even played in a Powderfinger tribute band (for 3 rehearsals). But over the years, I’ve started to look at them more critically. I never quite got from the music the same intellectual depth they showed in interviews. At times, it feels like the focus was on writing anthems for the masses—great ones, undeniably—but often without that deeper layer (with a few notable, more personal exceptions in the catalogue). Odyssey Number Five isn’t my favourite of theirs. I’d take Internationalist and Vulture Street over it pretty comfortably. Part of that might just be fatigue—I’ve heard “My Happiness” so many times I can barely hear it anymore. It was a staple of the busking circuit in the early 2000s, back when coins mattered and pubs still shut at midnight. It’s still music I enjoy hearing when it comes on—but I’ve always had this lingering feeling that they could’ve taken more risks. For a band that thoughtful, I sometimes wish they’d aimed less for the middle and more for the edges.

Another just fine album

A couple of ok singles, but very same-ish, and is that kind of rock that doesn’t really rock at all. Very safe and very plain.

I listened but I didn’t hear. It can’t have been too bad though. Not as bad as being fired. Yay me.

Rock alternativo. Ni fu ni fa.

Okay !

October 14, 2025 HL: "The Meter", "Like a Dog", "These Days" First I'm hearing Powderfinger, of Brisbane. Decent, sometimes great pop-rock with the occasional singalong chorus. I give it a 7 outta 10

The perfect definition of mediocre. Not bad, not good. Just straight down the middle. My personal rating: 3/5 My rating relative to the list: 3/5 Should this have been included on the original list? No.

Pretty intereating

It definitely had that late 90s / early 2000 feel. I was hoping for a more angular feel since they are named after the Neil Young song. It was... okay. A few of the songs hit me, but a lot of it just felt forgettable to me. Top tracks: "Like A Dog," "We Should Be Together Now"

I've not come across these guys before and although formulaic the songs hit me this morning in a good way. There's some interesting sounds here.

Incredibly generic. Incredibly inoffensive. I'd play this for my mom and she'd say "that's nice"

Apple Music told me this is the sound that defined late 90s early 00s Australian rock and I guess, sure

Australian alt rock darlings that never quite broke through to the Americans. The songs are pretty good but it never felt quite special enough to warrant to acclaim that it received. Were Australians just too burnt out on pub rock from the 20th century that they needed something, anything, to bring a fresh take to guitar music? Was Nick Cave too artsy for them? Either way, it warrants some recognition despite the high likelihood that I will never return to this band again. CONTENDER FOR THE LIST: I think Australia has had better success stories than Powderfinger.

I enjoyed this, although I felt like the sound was maybe a little lacking in cohesion. Elements of 60s psychedelia and 70s rock and early metal over mostly straight down the middle alternative rock. It seemed lyrically smart though I did not dig very deep there, and well sung.

Why would you waste one of your wishes making an Australian Crowded House?

Fine. Catch at times but not in a way that will stick with me after I stop listening.

Alright, I guess

A bit like wafer cookies covered in MSG. Light, sweet, and tasty, but leaves you wanting something that is more fulfilling once you're done with it.

Odyssey Number Five is a bit dull for my tastes, too safe, too soft rock, and the vocals are a bit pitchy and annoying. 2/5, it's just boring. Give me Airbourne if you're giving me some Australian rock.

This is a bit like if music was soundwaves arranged in a specific way.

Just kinda bland early-aughts alternative? I don’t have much to say here, nothing bad to say about the execution or instrumentals but it seems like the kind of music you’d hear playing softly in a waiting room and think oh yeah, those guys.

I couldn’t get into this one at all, it was kind of dull and generic sounding.

Slow rock that slid directly off my brain. Few too many ballads

For every Australian band that seems to completely flip music on its head, there's ten that are just generically copying whatever seems to be popular at the time. This is the latter.

"Waiting For The Sun" is an excellent opener. Conversely, "My Happiness" is annoying to a degree, like a chirper, major-keyed version of Radiohead's "Climbing Up The Walls" -- which was dark and gripping instead. In a similar Radiohead's *The Bends* / *OK Computer* vein, "The Meter" fares far better, fortunately. "Like A Dog" takes a suddenly heavier hairpin curve, somewhere between QOTSA, Bowie and Led Zeppelin. Nice but very derivative -- you can sense the noughts retro-rock wave coming up here. After a short interlude, "Up and Down and Back Again", "My Kind of Scene" and "These Days" are rock ballads like Stereophonics or Manic Street Preachers have penned dozens of other ones like that: not necessarily bad songs -- sometimes very good ones, even. Yet just like most of their counterparts in the acts quoted up here, those slower compositions are never *unforgettable* tunes within *Odyssey Number Five*. By this point, the album's tracklist is lacking *crucial* dynamics, and the piano and double-bass alt-rock groove of "We Should Be Together", as interesting as it is is instrumentation-wise, is not enough to set the bar where it should be. This record doesn't take enough risks, damnit. And when Powderfinger does take a risk, the result sounds a bit aimless... With its awkward, meandering and loosely-knit instrumental bridges, the ironically-named *Thrilloillogy* even manages to lose the thread in what should have been a pivotal penultimate entry before the final mandatory acoustic cut. "Whatever Makes You Happy" pleads singer Bernard Fanning on that closer. Emphasis on "whatever". The problem here being that this last acoustic song is way too short and doesn't build up to anything special. Maddening how the last leg of the album is 100% underwhelming. To sum thing up, Powderfinger never reach the level of their obvious models, as competent and skilled as they are. It seems that Fanning is a good guy, generally speaking. But if *this* is the "best Australian album of all times" (Triple J's poll), I'm the frigging Pope. I won't excommunicate the user who suggested this. They even have my blessing. But I certainly won't include the album in my own codex. 2/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums. 7/10 for more general purposes (5 for the musicianship and production values + 2 for the artistry). ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 76 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 94 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 187 (including this one) ---- Émile, tu trouveras ma dernière réponse sous le *Inside* de Bo Burnham

I’ve never heard of Powderfinger before, but I’m not going to complain about the addition of Aussie artists to this list. I have no idea what this album is going to sound like, but I’m excited to check it out. After a two pretty strong tracks to start off, I felt like Powderfinger’s Odyssey Number Five fizzled out. Those first two songs were pretty good; I enjoyed the vocals, lyrics, and guitar playing. “Waiting For The Sun” reminded me a lot of Doves’ The Last Broadcast, which I really enjoyed (I saw that the person who submitted this album also gave that album five stars, and this seemed like an appropriate submission for someone who likes Doves). The lead and backing vocals were really great, and the overall sound had this slightly dark feeling to it that reminded me a lot of the alt rock radio songs I loved in the nineties (I feel like these guys invoked a lot of Live). “My Happiness” was really good, especially the guitar effects that were used. The lyrics here were good too, and I really loved the vocals on the chorus. This song reminded me of Our Lady Peace, in a really good way. But after those two songs, I felt like the band didn’t really establish any identity or signature sound for themselves. I thought the lyrics were pretty strong throughout the album, but musically, there was nothing that really added any emotional weight to those lyrics. This album wasn’t bad, but it felt like being a teenager, and buying a CD from a band who had a couple of radio hits you loved, but the rest of the album was just filler.

A mediocre alt rock album, nothing worthy of note.

boring and derivative