What Is Old Is New

It was late – probably a Friday night and I’d been burning something that got me thinking of Down By the Sea – the final track from Men At Work’s seminal album Business As usual.

While the world got terribly familiar with Down Under, I kept coming back to this track.  And I’m sure most Australians are now jaded by the band and saxophones from the 80’s never age terribly well but – sometimes a track is just sonically perfect for certain situations.

I knew I wanted to start a playlist with it and knew that Chris would be a great partner as he’s way hipper than I am when it comes to music and Aussie bands in particular, but we’d been playing with making playlists in threes and I suspected Jenna could benefit from a couple old bastards dropping goodness in her ears ;-p

Of course – we benefited more as we got exposed to new stuff.

It’s striking that tracks that are released over 4 decades from each other can still sit beautifully together.  Trends and fashion come and go but cool, good music never goes out of style.

Track Listing

• Down By the Sea – Men At Work
• Yesterday – Dan Croll
• Cold Was The Wind – Kurt Vile
• Star Dream Girl – David Lynch
• Seventeen Going Under – Sam Fender
• Dark Child – Marlon Williams
• This Night Has Opened My Eyes – 2011 Remaster – The Smiths
• In Consideration – flipturn
• Blood And Roses – The Smithereens
• New Orleans Is Sinking – The Tragically Hip
• Portrait of a Blank Slate – Lovejoy
• Anemone – The Brian Jonestown Massacre
• Never Saw It Coming – Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers
• Young Blood – Noah Kahan
• New Speedway Boogie – Courtney Barnett
• Sweet Jane – Cowboy Junkies
• I Know The End – Phoebe Bridgers
• Tangerine – Remaster – Led Zeppelin
• Fucked Up – Shannon Moore
• Bootleg Firecracker – Middle Kids
• Dirty Work – Steely Dan
• Rush – The Brook & The Bluff

Playlist image by GPT4

Chris Mccann

Drawn to music from an early age, Chris' first album was The Beach Boys - Good Vibrations, a record he'd spent weeks saving up his pocket money for. Now after many years of second hand vinyl markets and countless concerts and festivals, Chris a painter and decorator by day, continues to chase the dragon for that next cool music discovery. Raised in Brisbane and now operating out of Noosa on Australia's sunshine coast, you can learn more about Chris at https://www.noosadecorating.com/

Jenna B

Music is at the center of everything I do. Whether I’m creating playlists, discovering new artists, or singing along in the crowd, you can usually find me at a concert (over 100 and counting!) or with headphones on, exploring sounds across every genre.