Why are the oxide materials insulating?
To have conductuing valence zone requires to have infinite amount of ovarlapping valence orbitals with lesser amount of electrons. This is not usually possible for oxides, because they contain direct contacts O-O, but not M-M. O-atoms in oxides has completely filled electronic shell. Pure metals has electronic shells with much less electrons then available orbitals so they can allow electrons to move freely. This is the difference.