I think the first time I seriously experienced “sophomore slump”
\nwas in 1984, when I purchased the second Men At Work album
\nCargo<\/i>. Like thousands of other fans, I had gotten hooked on
\nthe quirkiness of “Down Under,” “Be Good Johnny” and “Who Can It Be
\nNow,” and was anxiously awaiting (undoubtedly with borrowed money
\nfrom my parents) the day when
\nCargo<\/i> hit the shelves.<\/p>\n
But after I had torn off the shrinkwrap and listened to the
\nwhole disc, I remember walking away from the album a tad
\ndisappointed. Sure, the lead-off single “Overkill” was decent, if
\nnot as powerful as the singles from
\nBusiness As Usual<\/i>.<\/p>\n
In truth, Colin Hay and crew were learning how tough it can be
\nto follow up a debut smash – especially when those songs were the
\nones which the band had plenty of time to craft and shape into
\nsomething wonderful.
\nCargo<\/i> sounds rushed at many points in the album, and though
\nit does have some great moments on it, one wonders what could have
\nbeen had the band received more time to work on it.<\/p>\n
The lead-off track “Dr. Heckyll And Mister Jive” is the first
\nobvious warning sign. Almost sounding forced into cutesy territory,
\nthis whole song doesn’t work from the get-go. Lyrically inept and
\nmusically weak, this is not the way to kick off an album. (Scarier
\nstill is that there was once a video for this song. Thinking back
\nto over 17 years ago, I do remember Hay looking relatively
\nbored.)<\/p>\n
The two well-known tracks, “Overkill” and “It’s A Mistake,” are
\nstill remembered for good reason, as they are undoubtedly the best
\ntracks on
\nCargo<\/i>. The former almost being a diatribe about paranoia,
\nthe latter an anti-Cold War treatise, each one has its own unique
\ncharms in both structure and lyric, and sound surprisingly fresh
\neven today, nearly 20 years since they were released.<\/p>\n
Yet there are some hidden gems on
\nCargo<\/i>. “Blue For You” is a lightly-peppered reggae beat
\nwhich may be a little light on the lyrical content but is a
\npleasant listen nonetheless. “No Sign Of Yesterday” has hints of
\n“Down By The Sea” in its basic structure, but is powerful enough to
\nstand firmly on its own and prove its own mettle. Same goes for the
\ndisc’s closer “No Restrictions,” an energetic number which
\nsometimes feels like both the band and the listener are racing
\ntowards the end of the album.<\/p>\n
Yet for all these strengths, it is the weaknesses on
\nCargo<\/i> that stand out. “Settle Down My Boy” almost feels like
\na sequel to “Be Good Johnny,” but has none of the quirkiness and
\ncharm of the original, sounding almost like a parental lecture —
\nsomething I was actively trying to avoid when I was 13, thank you
\nvery much. “I Like To” tries to nail down the inspired silliness of
\n“Helpless Automaton” and fails miserably, while “High Wire” falls
\nflat despite Hay’s attempt to make this track into something
\nspecial.<\/p>\n
No matter what Men At Work could have put out, it would be
\ncompared to
\nBusiness As Usual<\/i> due to the unexpected success of that
\nfirst album. While this might not be fair to
\nCargo<\/i> — indeed, the band does experiment more here than
\nthey did on their debut — it does happen nonetheless. Truth be
\ntold, had
\nCargo<\/i> been released as the debut, chances are Men At Work
\nwould never have reached the level of success they did enjoy. The
\nlong-time fans will still find things to enjoy on
\nCargo<\/i>, but the rest of us can get by with any number of 80s
\nhits collections to harvest the solid tracks from.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6006],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-37728","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-men-at-work","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37728"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37728"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}