Most days, I’ll wake up with a song (or songs) stuck in my head. This morning, it was Men At Work. They had 5 top 10 US hit singles in the span of a year – that’s impressive. For me, what’s impressive about them is that I really enjoy their more melancholy less rock songs. If you took all the uptempo stuff out of their debut album Business As Usual, you’d still have a really great album, especially the last 3 songs, which, when taken as a whole, are as great a closing triptych as I’ve heard on vinyl. There are only a few groups where I enjoy their slower, more introspective stuff more than their faster-harder stuff, with Men At Work being one, and Suede and Depeche Mode being two others that quickly come to mind.
I just heard that Mark E. Smith, curmudgeon and leader of legendary UK band The Fall has died. He was only 60, but he lived hard, and he’s probably grousing up in heaven right now. Futures and Pasts, Futures and Pasts.
