Old Enough to Forget

Several months ago I wrote about the band's 1983 album Cargo , and I mentioned that I loved the big hits on the debut album and was really disappointed with the album overall. I think my exact words were, "I remember being profoundly disappointed in the record. Two killers, and filler. It's not an album I've heard in decades." Okay, those were my exact words, that's the nice thing about cut and pasting. I began to wonder if I had been carrying around a lot of unnecessary baggage with respect to the album. After all, this is an album that's sold in excess of 10 million copies worldwide, and half a million of them right here in Canada. If it was shit, people would have noticed. Wouldn't they? As fate would have it, a little while ago I found a copy in the dollar bin (sadly the store has since closed as their landlord decided they wanted to jack up the rent. Bad for them, bad for me ... but I was starting to run out of space) that was in decent shape. It ...

If you weren't around in the early '80s it's hard to explain the short-lived Australian invasion ... well, it wasn't so much of an invasion, but people, myself included, love hyperbole. BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE! Back in 1981, seemingly out of nowhere, Men at Work were suddenly everywhere. A pair of honest-to-goodness earworms in "Who Can It Be Now?" and "Down Under" propelled the band into the stratosphere. I eagerly bought the album, and remember being profoundly disappointed in the record. Two killers, and filler. It's not an album I've heard in decades. In 1983 the band dropped Cargo and again the band scored big with a couple of tracks: "Overkill," a song that has aged incredibly well, and "It's a Mistake," that was very much part of the early '80s hysteria over nuclear annihilation. Fearing that it was going to be another killer and filler I didn't pick up the album, and sure enough I dismissed the album,...