Business As Usual by Men At Work

Business as Usual, the debut album by Melbourne's Men at Work, came out on CBS in Australia on 9 November 1981 and reached the US and Canada through Columbia in April 1982. It's quirky, sunny new wave with a reggae lilt and a sly sense of humour, fronted by Colin Hay's lead vocals and guitar, with Ron Strykert on lead guitar, Greg Ham on flute, saxophone and keyboards, John Rees on bass and Jerry Speiser on drums.

The songs are cheerful and slightly off-kilter at the same time. "Who Can It Be Now?" twitches with paranoia under a nagging sax line, "Down Under" bounces along on a skanking beat and Ham's flute hook, and "Be Good Johnny" and "Underground" show the band's wry, jittery side. The Australian sleeve was black and white; some overseas pressings swapped in black and yellow.

It spent nine weeks on top of the Australian Kent Music Report chart between December 1981 and March 1982, then went off like a rocket overseas. In America it sat at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for 15 weeks, a run nobody had managed before, from late 1982 into early 1983, and Britain gave it five weeks on top in early 1983 too. In January 1983 they became the first Australian act to hold the No. 1 album and No. 1 single in the US at once, and they did the same in Australia, New Zealand and Britain. Shipments reached 6 million in the US, they took the Grammy for Best New Artist in 1983, and in October 2010 the album made the book 100 Best Australian Albums.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.