16. Business as Usual by Men at Work

16. Business as Usual by Men at Work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SECVGN4Bsgg&list=OLAK5uy_mzG5DvQXjmQHAyFZ4RSnheGFVSwvS55GQ

Fun Fact: The album cover for the Australian release of this album was black and white. (Nice factoid. THANKS!)

This album is so good it really should have been two albums. And in fact, it kind of was. 

First, there was the album that got released in the U.S. in June of 1982 right in the middle of my obsession with the Paul Hogan Show and right before Randy came to spend his senior year at Marsh Valley High School. Randy has always been a big influence on my musical tastes, but I was already hooked on this album before we ever listened to it together. And we did like these songs a lot. I remember once he explained to me how Colin Hay made his voice do that rapid modulation thing. Also, I remember singing along to "Be Good Johnny" with Randy in the old truck in the middle of winter as we were feeding cows. Randy especially liked the verse that went:

Gonna play football this year, Johnny?

Nah.

Oh, must be gonna play cricket this year then are ya, Johnny?

Nah. Nah. Nah.

Ha. Boy, you sure are a funny kid, Johnny. But I like you! So tell me, what kind of boy are ya, Johnny.

I listened to this album so much during my junior and senior year of high school that I'm surprised that the tape didn't disintegrate. Of course, since I didn't have a tape player in any of the vehicles or a Walkman, listening to it was confined to my bedroom in the basement. But I'd listen to it while getting ready for school in the morning by taking the tape player into the bathroom. And I'd listen to it while lifting weights or just laying on the bed or doing math homework at my particle board desk that I'd built with my own two hands from a kit that I'd received as a Christmas gift in middle school. Is is possible to do your best at your math homework assignments while listening to Men at Work? No. It isn't. But that didn't stop me from doing it anyway. 

Also, remember how we had to do all that scripture reading in seminary in order to get a good grade? Well, in 1982 I discovered that it is definitely possible to read the scriptures while listening to Men at Work--especially if you have to basically read the entire semester's reading assignment in the next three days or you'll flunk the class. Of course, it was a bit strange later on in seminary when I was asked to read a verse and all I wanted to say was, "I went to the man. I told him a robot was what I am. But he just smiled, said I was a fractious child."

So that was the first album. Now for the second album.

In the HondoJoe write-up of this album, it was already pointed out that there were three other songs released as B-sides to singles from this album. And I agree that all three of them would be worthy of inclusion on the original album. Those songs are:

Anyone For Tennis

https://youtu.be/ZyOWkKTwIdw 

Crazy

https://youtu.be/nTK4S9gAEdE 

F-19

https://youtu.be/x_z1Ye-yd4Q

But there were other songs by Men at Work that were performed before their second album Cargo was released that were not included on Cargo, which I think makes them fair game as possible additions to a second Business as Usual album. Here are my top contenders.

The Ways of the Broken Hearted

https://youtu.be/YbPVoCJvbW0

Keypunch Operator

https://youtu.be/7lClxIxcOSE

https://youtu.be/yaHxVUbkSdw

Down Under (an early version of the song with extra reggae)

https://youtu.be/QKKy3lpJXL8

I Don't Understand

https://youtu.be/tOnYQNIC4UY 

Coin in the Slot

https://youtu.be/ovihEDSvntg

https://youtu.be/fmYHRQk0DrI

Don't Preach to Me

https://youtu.be/yaQthOd6eLM

I Changed My Mind

https://youtu.be/zunM-WI5mHQ

Okay, maybe not all of these are the same caliber of the songs on the first Business as Usual album. And maybe all of them weren't written before the album was released. (I couldn't find the info for all of the songs on when they were written.) But they are lots of fun to listen to, as they give you (me?) the pleasure of listening to new music while, at the same time, taking you (me?) back to the good old days of high adventure camping in the summer and snowmobile excursions to the Big Onion in the winter. And how many songs can do that anymore?

Well, I suppose the answer to that question would be "at least seven." I guess listening to Business as Usual didn't keep me from learning math after all! Sure it isn't really advanced math. But it's enough for me to get a job as a keypunch operator.

Nardo

17. Album by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts

 17. Album by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9kZWlIgKyU&list=OLAK5uy_lfFkmAv1pOn5HklZTfRjqW8HxQTG9yxdA&index=1

In the July of 1983, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts released their third album titled...wait for it..., "Album." The song "Fake Friends" was the first single released from Album, which hardly broke the Top 40 list, followed by the cover of "Everyday People," which again, barely made it into the Top 40. It had to have been disappointing for Jett and the band, considering that their previous album had the number one song on the charts for seven weeks in a row with their cover of "I Love Rock and Roll," as well as a top-ten charting cover of "Crimson and Clover." While "The French Song" got a little airplay, and MTV showed the video a few times, since the song was about having a threesome, and since the chorus that sings about having the threesome is in French, it just wasn't the kind of song that could get onto the charts in 1983 America. As far as album sales go, Album reached only as high as #20 on the 1983 album charts. And frankly, I think it got that high in part due the excellent album cover. The '80s hair, the black leather outfit, the red Converse sneakers (Hondo had a pair of red sneakers in elementary school!), the sexy pout while playing the guitar and leaping into the air with a double knee bend, all against a bright yellow backdrop--I mean, damn! That cover really pops!

I don't recall ever playing "Fake Friends" during a school dance, nor do I have any memories of any songs on this album being related to my summer lifeguarding gig. Truth be told, I basically ignored this album when it came out. So why is it ranked so high on my list?

Fast forward from senior year high school to my second year of work at BYU-Idaho. The school had finished building it's new conference center / indoor gym that featured a large indoor elevated running track that wrapped around the upper story of the gym. (8 laps equaled one mile.) It was about that time that my boss called me into his office and said some things about my work that basically made me feel like all the hard work I had put in during the previous months of working 70-80 hour work weeks had been a waste and that I was not appreciated or valued by anyone at the university. This was also around the time when I was seeing a doctor about being pre-diabetic, and he wanted me to start working out every day, which was something I had avoided doing because of my long work hours. 

Anyway, I spent about a week being super-depressed about all of this. I had completely lost my mojo, and I didn't know if I'd even get it back again. But then one day I felt that spark of rebellion that I'd had back in my high school years--that I-don't-give-a-damn-anymore attitude--and I decided that it was time to get my mojo back. So I decided I was going back to a 40-hour work week, and I got some running shoes and a new iPod and earphones, and I scoured the Apple Music playlists for some running music. When I came across the "Fake Friends" song, I thought it was a perfect fit for my playlist, so I checked out some of the other songs on the album and realized that I'd hit pay dirt. For $9.99 I could get 16 songs that were not only runnable (except for "Why Can't We Be Happy") but also had enough go-to-hell attitude to keep me inspired to keep running as long as they were playing. So I committed to an everyday workout routine of weightlifting and running around that elevated track for every day Monday-Saturday for at least an hour. And Album was the album that I listened to the most as I did that. It is the album that helped me get my mojo back and get me into arguably the best physical shape of my life--even better than when I was training to run marathons. The 1980s sound of driving guitars, the triple-extra-naughty lyrics, the don't-give-a-damn-bout-my-bad-reputation attitude--they all combined to make it a supremely listenable workout album as I jogged lap after lap and did push-up after push-up between miles.

Speaking of extra-naughty lyrics, along with my previous warning about "The French Song," please don't listen to the cover of the Rolling Stones' "Star Star" while you're around the wife and kids, unless you think they'd like to hear the word "starfucker" 62 times. I'm guessing they wouldn't. Also, be aware that "Coney Island Whitefish" has some awesome lyrics--especially if you think about your dumbass boss while you sing along to them--but I don't think you'd want the little ones to incorporate "Scumbag" into their vocabulary just yet.

Oh, and one more warning. The song "Locked Groove" is a 3 minute and 47 second song that you can basically stop listening to after the first minute, because the rest of the song is the same loop played over and over and over. See, when Joan released "Fake Friends" as a single, she put "Nitetime" on the B-side with a locked groove at the end of the song. That meant that if a restaurant put "Fake Friends" into the jukebox, some kid who was in the know would play the B-side of "Nitetime," and at the end of the song, it would just keep playing that loop over and over until the record was "manually rejected." So the people listening to the song would have to listen to that annoying loop for a while before they'd get so upset that they'd complain to the manager, who would then have to figure out how to get into the jukebox and stop the record from playing. And all the time this was happening, the kids who had selected the song would sit there and laugh at how the song was driving everyone nuts. Now, if I'd been in the know back when that song came out, I would have played "Nitetime" on every damn jukebox I came across. Yep. I was that kind of kid. And pulling off that giant practical joke is one more reason why I love Joan Jett. 

Now, on a personal note, the song "Fake Friends" became especially meaningful to me as I reclaimed my mojo. It became even more meaningful about a year later when I ended up getting fired from BYU-Idaho. I do have about six people in Rexburg that I still consider to be genuine friends, but the rest of the campus, especially all of the administrators and faculty and local church leaders that repeatedly said how much they loved me and appreciated me and cared about me, were nothing more than fake friends. They were, in fact, whited sepulchres. So in the end, the one revelation I took from my time at BYU-Idaho--a truth I discovered in the hardest way possible--is that you've really got nothing to lose when you lose fake friends...except for your job. 

Nardo

18. Cosmic Thing by The B-52s

 18. Cosmic Thing by The B-52s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axyFMQUFASA&list=OLAK5uy_lCiIAxZkSeKCFtWxrukxbkgDk87CEUKss

Wanna party like it's 1989? Then you're gonna need this album, not only because the songs put you in a party mood, but also because the album cover looks like a party decoration.

The instrumental "Follow Your Bliss" is the only song you really couldn't dance to, unless you're keen to slow dance, in which case it might suffice. It's the last song on the album, so I look at it as the music that you play at the end of the party when everyone is exhausted and there's nothing left to do but clean up and go to sleep.

Obviously, the biggest hit off this album was "Love Shack," which was written in homage to the little cabin in Georgia in which the group wrote "Rock Lobster," which happened to be the biggest hit from their 1979 debut album, which also happened to be the song that got John Lennon wanting to write music again, which happened to lead to his final album, Double Fantasy. (Nice factoid. THANKS!)

Having already been a fan of The B-52s and owning their first two albums, it wasn't a hard sell to get me to buy this album when it came out during the summer of '89, even though money was tight during that summer. See, that was the summer that Julie spent getting pregnanter and pregnanter, and with no air conditioning in the Standrod House, she holed up for a number of weeks at her parent's house just trying to stay cool and keep food down. I was taking summer courses at ISU with Hondo and trying to work enough side jobs to pay the bills. Then Erik was born in September, and money got even tighter. The only way we survived was that we were living rent free in the Standrod House. Otherwise, I would have had to drop out of school and work full time just to keep the kid in diapers. Fortunately, we were able to scrape by, so I was able to stay in school long enough to graduate and get my first teaching gig at Irving Jr. High. And this album was one that I listened to a lot whenever I was working in my classroom. We even had the 7th grade kids dance in the hall to "Love Shack" once in a while. Also, during this time Julie went back to school and started her job as a nurse, which left me to do a lot of baby tending, which meant lots of trips to the zoo and walks with the stroller around downtown Pocatello. So this album is part of the soundtrack to those early years of marriage and family building in Pocatello--years that were really hard at the time, especially financially. But now I look back on them with much more fondness than they probably deserve. But then again, how can you not have positive memories when the ultimate '80s (and '90s) party album is playing?!

Nardo