INXS albums poll

Also, I'm excluding Switch and Original Sin from the choices, because no Hutchence.
(I couldn't find where anyone did this poll earlier, but no doubt one of the first replies will be a link to that poll that I couldn't find)

My favorite INXS song is from an earlier album but Kick is so iconic and there are so many hits on there that it seems like the obvious choice and I’m ok with it.

God I love INXS so much.

I have to be predictable and go with Kick. Shabooh Shoobah and Listen Like Thieves are great too.

thieves. bunch of kickass albums here generally though

Kick, the predictable choice yeah but an easy one for me. Even in a year w/a lot of competition from other iconic albums that sold untold millions it held its own and then some.

Kick is good but not as good as Thieves.

Will probably vote for Thieves over Kick. Listening to Shabooh Shoobah right now, though, 'cause I used to like "The One Thing" a lot (it got radio play when I was a kid) and I want to see what the rest of the album's like.

Welcome to Wherever You Are is a very solid album too imo

My favorite INXS song is from an earlier album but Kick is so iconic and there are so many hits on there that it seems like the obvious choice and I’m ok with it.

― Benson and the Jets (ENBB), Tuesday, October 16, 2018 6:27 PM (fifty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

What song is it?

Either way you're otm, this is Kick for me as well. What a record. I love Thieves and think X is underrated, too, but I can't not vote for Kick.

I wrote about KICK for Pitchfork but wish Listen Like Thieves had gotten the deluxe treatment. "Same Direction" is an awesome album cut.

Kick is the only album to really stick with me of the three I tried (debut, Kick, and X). I should check out Listen Like Thieves, I guess.

I've always been partial to The Swing and Shabooh Shoobah, when they sounded more like a band from a John Hughes soundtrack than a band that should be headlining stadiums.

I'm seven tracks into Shabooh Shoobah (out of 10) as I type this and it's...good but not great. The songs are fine while they're playing, but "The One Thing" is the only really memorable one so far. And the saxophone is grotesquely Clemons-esque at times.

I prefer their sax in staccato form: the toot-toot-toot-toot from "Original Sin," say.

Oog, I just got to the fake reggae song ("Jan's Song").

I'm seven tracks into Shabooh Shoobah (out of 10)

man you haven’t even gotten to “don’t change” yet

a song not even Springsteen could fuck up!

legit one of the most perfect rock songs ever made

yep

OK, so SS begins and ends really, really well, and everything in between is pleasant enough, except for "Jan's Song." I'd probably give it a 6.5-7.5 overall.

I didn't realize how much I loved "Don't Change" until they used it in the closing credits of Adventureland
(had the same kind of epiphany with Head Over Heels in Donnie Darko)

It's such a great song.

Back in middle school I wanted to see a concert, my first, and what a wealth of choices I had: it was between Peter Gabriel's So tour, U2's Joshua Tree Tour and INXS's Kick tour. I saw U2. Adult me would most enjoy going back for Gabriel. Never wanted to see INXS live, but I bet they were OK.

Gabriel was amazing on that tour. (I'm guessing we're about the same age.)

INXS on the Kick tour were fantastic. Big Seattle arena show, charismatic performance from MH.

Kick was designed for the hits, but Shabooh Shoobah has an atmosphere I keep going to first over the others, so that for me.

I suspect my answer would still be The Swing, 10-year-old me's choice. Probably the only one where I wouldn't feel compelled to skip anything, regardless of some weedy synth lines and conspicuously processed-sounding drums. Maybe those are the attraction.

The 4 singles from Shabooh Shoobah probably represent higher highs, but I still can't remember much about quite a bit of the remainder.

INXS on the Kick tour was the first concert I went to with my friends without parental supervision. It was awesome, and our moms waited for us outside the gates of the amphitheater. I think they just read and chatted? IDK I was raging with my friends to INXS!!

Voted Listen Like Thieves because I like it better musically but Kick is the most evocative of ye olden times with my friends. Lots of good memories with that album.

Shabooh is great - goth lite, postpunk synth pop. I remember thinking, aged 13, that "To Look At You" was the best song ever made.

Shabooh is also elevated by showing up multiple times on the "Reckless" soundtrack (The One Thing, To Look At You, Soul Mistake). A 1984 Rebel Without a Cause-type film with Aidan Quinn and Daryl Hannah, the dance scene tracked to "Never Say Never" inspired a lot of personal dance floor technique / flailing.

While I enjoy at least one track on all of their albums, Kick gets my vote for being their finest end-to-end listen.

It strikes me that a lot of the posters on this thread are approximately the same age. I also caught the Kick tour when I was in junior high (not quite old enough to go without an adult).

Three things i remember from it:
- the guitarist playing while riding around stage on a skateboard
- hutchence had a jacket with the word "HUTCH" in sequins on the back
- the opener was PiL (there was lots of spitting involved in that set)

And FWIW, my vote goes to The Swing. That's the one I revisit most often -- there are some pretty solid non-singles lurking on side 2 ("What I say", "Johnson's Aeroplane"). They lost some of that melancholy when they went big and glossy.

^ agreed. Fine deep cuts. Actually, it barely even feels like it has many deep cuts. eg. "What I Say" had a promo video and was probably what ultimately inspired a childhood purchase; "The Swing" and "Melting in the Sun" were second-tier fixtures on Aus radio for years; etc.

Listen Like Thieves because it has This Time

LBI - It’s Don’t Change which, as others have stated above, is one of the best songs ever nervermind best INXS song. It is perfect.

I am currently very dramatically singing along to “Never Tear Us Apart” which is so melodramatic but I love it so much.

I never liked that song, and have often wondered if it's a generational thing, like for certain generations it's some sort by touchstone. For example, in the theatrical version of Donnie Darko they use the cool Echo & the Bunnymen song, and then he reveals that they meant to use Never Tear Us Apart by INXS, and replaces it in the director's cut, and it just doesn't work as well. similarly, the one time I had to see John Mayer live I dismissed it to a friend as Junior Prom music, and then he covered that INXS song, which was my junior prom theme. For sure it was a big hit, and I remember it being ubiquitous at the time, but I don't remember it having any greater cultural impact than, say, Def Leppard Love Bites.

"NTUA" was my friends' "First Dance" at their wedding.

The first time I heard "Don't Change" was in the finale of that reality show for INXS to find a new singer. I only had the '94 greatest hits at that point, which doesn't focus much on the early albums. I instantly fell in love hearing that song, even without Hutchence singing (the Hutchence version is even better, of course), and also felt angry that it was not included on the compilation I owned, in favor of, say, "The Stairs"

That's a grade-A WTF omission

i love Thieves & Shabooh, and I super love X these days way more than I did at the time but Kick is just like, the ~perfection~ of everything great about them, the hooks, the sound, his voice...

xp yup. Actually all their single disc compilations are weird, missing some key tracks here and there

Whenever a band makes an album that at least sounds good, but also sounds like they made in their sleep, I call it a Full Moon Dirty Hearts.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I think they peaked with The Swing -- they had grown to be more compelling than they had been on earlier albums, but they hadn't yet sacrificed a lot of their interesting ideas and textures in their (successful) quest to produce huge hits. Listen Like Thieves is a close second.

I have a hunch that Kick is gonna win this in a walk, but I think this ^ is pretty OTM.

Their groundbreaking collaboration with John Coltrane should win:

https://www.discogs.com/John-Coltrane-INXS-Standard-Coltrane-X/release/10626791

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

p much what you'd expect, right down to one demented rando throwing an indefensible vote to one of the dire post-Kick efforts, and it not mattering which one

they wanna put guns in the sky
someone out there ain't gonna like it
but it could be good, make us love each other
have to realize: "i own the future"

i, i was standing
you were there

i was totally upright and you were a witness to that
they can say it never happened,
but you know it did no matter what, we both know that's what was so
cosmic catastrophe could occur, but come judgement day,
no one can deny that i was standing, because you and i both have that event indelibly imprinted upon our transcendent consciousnesses,
and in the existential scheme of things,
that's all that can be said to have ever been true:
that i was standing, and you, you were there, a seraphic witness of that blessed event

an exegesis of my favorite lyric of all time

also, don't change is part of the holy triumvirate along with once in a lifetime and in between days.