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Men at Work were an Australian rock band which formed in 1979. Their founding mainstay was Colin Hay on lead vocals; he formed the group with Jerry Speiser on drums; and Ron Strykert on lead guitar; they were joined by Greg Ham on flute and keyboards; and then John Rees on bass guitar. This line up achieved national and international success in the early 1980s. In January 1983 they were the first Australian artists to have a simultaneous No. 1 album and No. 1 single in the United States Billboard charts – Business as Usual and "Down Under" respectively. With the same works they achieved the same distinction of a simultaneous No. 1 album and No. 1 single on the Australian, New Zealand and United Kingdom charts. Their second album, Cargo was also No. 1 in Australia, No. 2 in New Zealand, No. 3 in the US, and No. 8 in the UK. Their third album, Two Hearts, reached the top 20 in Australia and top 50 in the US.
At the Grammy Awards of 1983 they won the Best New Artist category; while at the ARIA Music Awards of 1994 they were inducted into the related Hall of Fame. Men at Work have sold over 30 million albums worldwide. According to Australian musicologist, Ian McFarlane, "[i]rrespective of the band's fairytale rise to prominence, [their] phenomenal success inextricably created worldwide interest in Australia and Australian music ... [they] simply opened the floodgates with little more than a clutch of great songs ... [and were] Australia's most famous group" until the late 1980s. The group disbanded in 1986 and reformed in 1996 to disband again by 2002.
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