Интерналист: Альбом группы Powderfinger и поиски выхода из напряженности

Internationalist is the third studio album by Australian alternative rock band Powderfinger. The album was released on 7September 1998 and was often labelled Powderfinger's most adventurous work, with greater experimentation than in previous works. Internationalist followed in the success of its predecessor, Double Allergic, and was certified five times platinum in Australia. Internationalist received four ARIA Music Awards, including "Album of the Year". The album produced four singles for the band; "The Day You Come", "Don't Wanna Be Left Out/Good Day Ray", "Already Gone" and "Passenger", which all appeared on Triple J's Hottest 100 poll in two consecutive years. Internationalist received fairly positive reviews in the Australian press, and cemented Powderfinger's position on the local music scene; however, the album failed to launch the band in the overseas market.

Powderfinger spent much of early 1997 touring, after the success of Double Allergic. Songwriter Bernard Fanning then spent much of 1997 writing songs for Internationalist in Brisbane, drawing on inspiration from a mid 1997 band trip to the United States. The album's title refers to escapism—namely, the ability that an "internationalist" has to escape from racial and social tension. When asked in a Juice interview, Bernard Fanning summarised the title of the album by stating;
cquote|It's about the idea of all this tension that is around at the moment, all this racial and political tension The idea is that an 'internationalist' has an escape from all that. Music can be a vehicle for that escape. Powderfinger used the extra time to play table tennis, which was the band's recreation of choice during the Internationalist and Odyssey Number Five recording sessions. Collins described the album as not being as easy listening as their previous work, He also agreed that the album was much more experimental, and described the album as the band's "most successful", as well as saying the album that best replicated "the sound we have live". Numerous songs on Internationalist were politically and socially influenced, although the band denied it being a deliberate motif. When "The Day You Come" was released, there was speculation that it alluded to Pauline Hanson's One Nation political party, although the band claimed the song was vague and didn't specifically refer to one person. Fanning said of "The Day You Come";

Listen|filename=Powderfinger Don't Wanna be Left Out 18s. ogg|title="Don't Wanna Be Left Out"|description=An 18 second sample from "Don't Wanna Be Left Out", which was described as "one of the roughest Powderfinger songs to date". The second single was the double a side, "Don't Wanna Be Left Out/Good Day Ray", released on 9November 1998. "Don't Wanna Be Left Out", a song about a friend of Fanning's who had difficulty in social situations, was one of the roughest Powderfinger songs to date. 'Don't Wanna Be Left Out' could be comfortably ranked with other Powderfinger songs such as 'Lighten My Load' and 'Rise Up'. The music video for "Don't Wanna Be Left Out" was unpopular and drew criticism from band members. He also described the music video for "Good Day Ray" as being one of the better videos the band had made. The fourth and final single from the album was "Passenger", released on 9August 1999. "Passenger" was influenced by Elvis Presley, and included a big horn section, as well as backing vocals from folk group Tiddas. "Passenger" won the ARIA Award for "Song of the Year" in 1999. The song's music video was one of Powderfinger's first to feature computer graphics, and was produced by Fifty Fifty Films. It appeared at #48 on Max's top 100 songs from the 1990s list.