No-Skip Albums: "Kick" by INXS

One of the great missing joys of today's Internet culture is joining a record club. Whether it was RCA, BMG, or Columbia, Gen-Xers remember the thrill of choosing 12 albums and getting them all for ONE CENT! Shipping was extra, but in the Eighties, it was about $2.95. You were only obligated to buy one or two overpriced (read: $16.99) albums at full price over the next 1-2 years, but when you're a teenager, a year seems like a decade. After you fulfilled your contract, you could cancel and start the process all over again.

One of the albums I chose in one of my record club initial offerings was picked as filler to round out my 12 choices; it was Listen Like Thieves by the Australian alt-rock band INXS, which I pronounced "inks" at the time. I had heard a couple of singles off the album, and there was nothing else that tickled my fancy at the time, so I took a flyer. It is a marvelous album, worth a full listen in its own right, but not a no-skipper, and certainly not as great as the masterpiece I actually came to discuss today.

Released in 1987, my sophomore year in college and when I met two of my lifelong friends, Wags and Tuck, Kick is the apex of INXS's career. Their follow-up album, X, produced four singles, but they never replicated their success of the Eighties, and dynamic frontman Michael Hutchence was found dead of an apparent suicide, though the circumstances of his death have been shrouded in controversy to this day.

The entire Kick album is almost completely populated by hit singles, and unlike my favorite Tears for Fears album, which only features eight songs, this is a full twelve songs stacked, and not one of them is a dud or one I wouldn't listen to.

Each side sounds like a greatest hits compilation from the late Eighties: Side One—"Guns in the Sky," "New Sensation (Billboard #3)," "Devil Inside (#2)," "Need You Tonight/Mediate (#1)," "The Loved One." Side Two: "Wild Life," Never Tear Us Apart (#7)," "Mystify," "Kick," "Calling All Nations," "Tiny Daggers."

I was fortunate enough to see INXS twice on their Kick tour, first in Columbia, then a second time in St. Louis. Without a doubt, Michael Hutchence was the most dynamic, magnetic, charismatic front man I've ever seen perform live. In both shows, he was in absolute control of the entire arena, and the energy carried over into the entire band. Not one member of the band stood still for even a moment, not even their drummer, who frequently jumped into the air in the midst of songs! Both shows had a joyous party atmosphere, with the St. Louis show ending their second encore with fireworks and an arena-wide confetti drop. You could have had a terrible, awful, no-good, very bad day and still walked out of that concert with a blissed-out grin all over your face.

I still hear their music from time to time, but INXS (pronounced "In Excess," just in case you didn't realize it) would be one of my first picks in a discussion about "overlooked and/or underrated" bands from the Eighties. It would have been nice had they been able to sustain their success and energy for a few more albums, but if there is anything at all that we learn from music, it's that nothing lasts forever. This album, however, should last forever as a testament to a truly great and fun rock band.