INXS is best known for their smash 1987 album Kick. And that is indeed a fantastic album, one I’ve featured twice on the blog already (‘Never Tear Us Apart‘ and ‘Need You Tonight/Mediate‘).
But if I had to select one INXS album as their finest, I think I’d go with the lesser-known Welcome to Wherever You Are, released in 1992.
Packed with great songs and inventive production and somehow tightly focused despite meandering all over the place musically, this is one of the best albums of the 90s.
The album had one minor hit (‘Not Enough Time’) but otherwise fell flat, especially in the U.S. The band never really recovered after that, releasing two forgotten albums before lead singer Michael Hutchence’s 1997 suicide (or accidental death by autoerotic asphyxiation, if you ask some people).
Welcome to Wherever You Are is chock full of memorable tunes but the one that sticks with me the most is ‘Beautiful Girl.’ Written by Andrew Farriss (the band’s keyboardist and principal songwriter) for his daughter, it starts off with a simple piano line that could be plinked out on a kid’s toy. Hutchence, who had one of the great voices in rock, does the rest.
With a black coat on
Running from a bad home
With some cat inside
Now where did you find her
Among the neon lights
That haunt the streets outside
She says
Stay with me
Beautiful girl
(Stay with me)
Beautiful girl
(Stay with me)
She wanna go home
From door way to door way
Street corner to corner
With neon ghosts in the city
And she says
Stay with me
Stay with me
(Stay with me)
(Stay with me)
She’s so scared
So very frightened
Anything could happen
Right here tonight
Beautiful girl
(Stay with me)
Beautiful girl
(Stay with me)
She wanna go home
Beautiful girl
(Stay with me)
Meet Me In Montauk 
This song was a hit or at least a released single, no? I’ve certainly heard it before.
I can’t really say why, but I’ve never really liked the chorus of this song. And I think, overall, I far prefer the grittier, sexier INXS found in their 80’s albums. It felt like their later work was trying too hard to appeal to a larger pop audience, which is ironic, because it largely didn’t.
Thankfully Clay was able to help me remember where I’d heard the song – in this trailer:
I believe it is Brandon Flowers doing the honors in the clip. Regardless, I have to confess that I had no idea the song wasn’t current when I heard it in the trailer.
I don’t like the original as much as the remake, but I still love me some “Need You Tonight,” the best INXS song ever!
What do you mean, original vs. remake? That’s the very same INXS version in the trailer!
You passed the test 😉
Can’t wait to hear the new version, though.