Chartography - Men at Work

Here's the list of successes from, probably, the biggest commercial sensation of the early 1980s - Australian band Men at Work. Their rise was nothing short of meteoric and knew no bounds, reaching all parts of the globe. For a couple of years they were the trusty hitmakers on a worldwide scale, but after a well-deserved break from late 1983 to early 1985 things were never the same again. In fact their comeback went nearly unnoticed and they couldn't deal with it, breaking up soon afterwards, with various band members attempting solo carriers to little returns. Such is a price of a total early success, it seems. Still the Men are fondly remembered and their grandes exitos are an indelible part of mass culture. That's some achievement and should not be taken lightly.

Men at Work

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Chartography - Howard Jones

Here's a peculiar case of a performer who at the top of his game seemingly appealed only to English-speaking market. Howard Jones, one man band of a synth variety, hit big immediately in the fall of 1983, taking by storm first his home country then the USA. His ascendancy was somethin to behold, and yet, the mainland Europe barely took notice, for some reason. Still he could safely ignore that, having secured the most lucrative market in the world. His fall, unfortunately, was equally as fast, he was no longer a going concern in the UK by the end of 1986 already, while in the US he continued to score hits up until (and including) 1992. During the 1990s, conversely, it was Europe that provided him with any kind of commercial acceptance, which only goes to show that mass attention moves in mysterious ways. Nowadays he's an esteemed senior gentleman of (synth)pop, still filling arenas, releasing albums and even having chart entries here and there, while his "one of a kind" legacy is proven and universally recognized. Let's see how he went about chart-wise.

Howard Jones

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Nb. Discography