Vinyl of the Week - 31 JANUARY 2021

Business As Usual, Men At Work

I was driving this week when a song came on the radio that took me right back. It was Down Under by Men At Work. It got me thinking about how often this iconic song gets played on the radio all over the world. It also made me want to listen to the album this Aussie anthem is from. Men At Work formed in 1979 in Melbourne, the band founded by lead singer and guitarist Colin Hay with Ron Strykert on bass guitar, Jerry Speiser on drums and Greg Ham on flute, saxophone and keyboards. Their debut record Business As Usual was released in November 1981 and went on to set some amazing benchmarks for an Australian band. Down Under was introduced to an international audience on the back of Australia winning the America’s Cup yacht race in 1983. The song immediately became a worldwide hit, the album and single achieving number one status in both the US and UK. 17 years later that success was repeated when the band played Down Under at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the song finding a new generation of fans. Over the years the band split and reformed three times and despite releasing several other albums this one was by far their most successful. It came at a time when music was trending towards a more electronic sound and lots of post-production. Men At Work did the opposite with Business As Usual, paring everything back to the essence. The sound was clean and simple but the music still felt fresh and new. No wonder it took the world by storm. Definitely one to revisit - DS