He just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

20/02/83 : Business As Usual - Men At Work


I liked the singles from this, but never checked out the album - I think I felt they weren't taking things seriously, so why should I take them seriously?  Which seems a bit mad with hindsight, but there you go - I'm not saying everything I've ever done has made sense. Either way, I'm quite looking forward to listening to it.

And yeah, it's generally fine without really straying too far from the format of the singles.  I must admit I found my attention wandering towards the end of the album, but I wouldn't declare any of it to be terrible.  "Down Under" still sounds pretty fresh - I obviously prefer this version to the updated one, but it's nice to see it getting a second life (as I type this, it's at #90 after a 29 week run).  I'd also say that on this album (unlike on the new version of "Down Under"), Colin Hay's voice is surprisingly reminiscent of Sting's in quite a few places.  But it's not one either of us ever owned - 12/46.

We're at #1 in the charts this week - it's last of FIVE straight weeks at the top.  Wow - I really don't remember it being that big back in the day.  Amazingly, this is the first #1 album of the week I've written about this year - as opposed to 2020/1 when it seemed to happen every week.  It managed a 42 week run, followed by a couple more random weeks before it disappeared in March '84.  The highest new entry this week was The Thompson Twins at #12 - one of the albums keeping it out of the top 10 was Jane Fonda's Workout Album at #9, which managed a 32 week run in the charts this year.  Quite bizarre.

Wikipedia doesn't have an awful lot on the album other than pointing out how amazingly successful it was - yes, 5 weeks at #1 here but FIFTEEN weeks at the top in the US, selling over 10 million copies globally.  "Customers also listened to" Tears For Fears, A-Ha, Duran Duran and Matthew Wilder - and yes, I dragged "Break My Stride" out of the far reaches of my memory but I never knew he also wrote the music for Mulan.  Back to Men At Work, I didn't mind this - I didn't hear anything there to drag me back, but it was a nice musical reminiscence. 

27/02/83 - A rarely remembered gem

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