Classic albums- Business As Usual by Men At Work

This week's classic album segment I am looking at the debut album by legendary Australian group men At Work with Business As Usual from 1981. the group had been formed in 1979 in St Kilda with Colin hay, Ron Strykert(whom both had been in an duo playing acoustic Music), Jerry Spesier, John Rees and John Sneddon which he was then replaced by Greg Ham and had played around Melbourne at places like the Cricketers where they would there every Thursday nights for over a year. The group signed up with CBS and began recording the Album that was to become Business As Usual @ Richmond Recorders in Melbourne throughout 1981. The album was released in Australia on November 9th 1981 which it went to number 1 where it stayed there for 9 weeks, released in the USA on April 22nd 1982 which actually Columbia refused to released it twice but with the presistence by the group's management it was released which it stayed at number 1 for 15 weeks, number 1 in the UK where it stayed there for 5 weeks and number 1 in Canada, Norway and New Zealand. The producer on the album was Peter McIan an American who was also one of the engineers on the album with Jim Barbour and Paul Ray and Jon JD Dickson did the cover and also from the album had the hit singles Who Can it Be Now which had been out before the album was recorded and Down Under. it is an excellent album which sounds great today as it was 31 years ago and the songs besides from the hit singles which are just excellent too like be Good Johnny, underground(which were hits also), Catch A Star and others. Men At work were to become one of Australia's popular groups who would have great success in the USA which they would win an Grammy for Best New Talent in 1982 and would recorded 2 More albums Cargo and Two hearts until they broke up in 1986. In April this year group member Greg Ham passed away and I thought it would be appropriate to pay tribute by talking about this album which the music will live on.

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