Classic Rock Bottom

ALBUM OF THE WEEK # 300 MEN AT WORK - BUSINESS AS USUAL (1981 - 35TH ANNIVERSARY)

Disclaimer: All info that does not reside in my brain is gathered from wikipedia.com (mostly because Jon can't stand it) unless otherwise noted.

Tomorrow is First Friday, and you should know what that means by now.  It means you get an anniversary album for AOTW.  This week it's Business As Usual, the very successful debut by Men At Work.  I'm also knee deep in a series featuring Billboard Number One albums, so there is that added bonus.  The album hit number one the week of November 13, 1982 and stayed there through the first 8 weeks of 1983 for a total of 15 weeks spent at the top. Business As Usual has been certified 6 X Platinum by the RIAA and featured two number one singles in Who Can It Be Now? and Down Under.  Be Good Johnny was also a pretty big hit, topping out at number 8.  

I remember this being all over the radio during that time period.  And quite frankly, I didn't care for it.  It just wasn't my cup of tea at the time.  But times do change.  I have picked it up recently along with a vinyl copy of Cargo (which was also featured a while back in this forum) and I've grown to really appreciate the music.  It's simple, but catchy and fun to sing along with.  And not just the hits, as there are several songs on here that could easily be considered hidden treasures (I Can See It In Your Eyes and Down By The Sea).  

What about you?  What do you think of the album or the band? Do you or do you not consider this band a classic rock band?  You can pick this up quite easily on Amazon for a slick $7.99 if you are so inclined.  I also included a couple of videos below to remind you of the early 80's.

Side One:

1. Who Can It Be Now?

2. I Can See It In Your Eyes

3. Down Under

4. Underground

5. Helpless Automation

Side Two:

6. People Just Love To Play With Words

7. Be Good Johnny

8. Touching The Untouchables

9. Catch A Star 

10. Down By The Sea

 

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I do NOT like this!!

I guess, you like your POP at the moment. I don't.

I'll bet, my wife will come running in a few minutes, and ask me "What are you hearing? It sounds better than what you usually listens to!". Exactly my meaning: This is music for GIRLS. I grew up, listening to this kind of music coming from my sisters room. Or it was playing at my friends houses, you know the friends that had no taste in music. Or at party's. I was never at party's, where the music was great. If I held a party myself, people would yell at me, if I turned up for Van Halen, and usually I put on whatever junk I could find instead.

Two of these songs have been played THOUSANDS of times on the radio, and it doesn't make them any better. They have the sound of me drunk at Disco's being 17 years old. Good times, bad music at Disco's.

Actually a cople of the songs are better than I thought, for instance "Underground", but I'm only listening to this because it's AOTW. "Helpless Automation" sounds like a Police-coversong. No, I don't really like The Police either.

I can't say, I've heard "Be Good Johnny" before. A big hit? Not in europe. I got a The Who-feeling listening to the song, but The Who after Keith Moon died.

I'm just not the customer to this kind of music. I won't say it's bad, just not for me at all. I'm not in to Pop, Disco, Soul or whatever you'll post later on at all.

Classic Rock? No, more like Classic Crap!!

I'm beginning to think, that you do this on purpose to annoy me? Nah, just kidding.

I like my "pop" all the time, not just at this moment.  I don't pick albums based on how much I like them, believe it or not.  I only picked this up because of the 1 dollar vinyl copy of Cargo that I purchased a couple of years ago. I thoroughly liked it so I felt the need to pick this up.  And it fits perfectly with my ongoing theme of number one albums.

I like to write exactly how I feel about the albums, while listening to them. If I only wrote possitive "reviews", it wouldn't be me writing at all. Some things I like, some things I don't care for.

Where did you get that picture of me from?
I googled your name.... Hahaha

I thought for sure you'd say "from yo' mama"...

I remember picking this up on cassette because the songs playing on MTV were so darn catchy. Technically, this was released in late 1981 in Australia, but was not released in the US until 1982. I picked this up at the PX on base in San Antonio in the latter part of 1982 which was when the album really took off here.

The album starts off strong (and catchy) with the first four songs then it kind of loses it a bit with the next two songs and then picks up again with the Johnny song and ends just like the beginning. For some reason, I just forget about those two songs so it's like I'm hearing them for the first time whenever I listen to this album.   

Yep, so I do like this album. Back then it was a guilty pleasure but now I don't care if people know I enjoy it.

Plus I like Colin's googly eyes in the video.

I can say a few things about this album... 

  1. I own it on vinyl but never bothered to repurchase on any other format.
  2. The videos were funny but they got old fast
  3. Cargo is a really very good album, far superior to this one.

Quick success followed by years of struggle.  I think they released 3 albums only followed by attempts to come back together but it wasn't to be.

At the time I really liked the different sound of the band and I liked the playfulness in the videos, but the songs on this album don't really hold up with time.  The first 4 tracks do still sound fun and quite good, but then it falls apart starting with Helpless Automation, I guess there was supposed to be a New Wavishness about them, but... the album never recovers.

If you listen to Cargo compared to this you can hear that the band found what worked best for them and went for it (With the exception of a track titled "I Like To") the albums are a stark contrast to each other.  I never even knew about their 3rd album so it went totally unnoticed and still is unheard by me to this day- though I know about it...

Nice post though!  It is fun to go back and think through where I was and what I was listening to at the time. And in 1982 it was a ton of April Wine, Sammy Hagar, Loverboy, Eddie Money, Chilliwack, Rush and Michael Schenkers Assault Attack.  SO you can see that Men At Work was a little outside my wheelhouse at the time...

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