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.
I’m giving INXS an encore performance based on the positive response to yesterday’s track. Several commenters mentioned ‘Need You Tonight’ as a favorite INXS track and the YouTube gods have cooperated by allowing the track to live unmolested on their servers, so here you go.
I like how the band paired ‘Need You Tonight’ with ‘Mediate’ not just on the album, which is common enough, but in the video as well. It’s two-for-one with a nice Dylan homage to boot.
Keeping it in the 80s for one more day. That decade gets a pretty bad rap, musically — Flock of Seagulls and all that — but as with any decade there are tons of gems to be found.
Take INXS, whose infectious brand of sparse but danceable funk can be heard in modern bands as trendy as Spoon. Yes, INXS has released an album as recently as 2005, but for me their defining sound will always be tied to the mid-80s albums Listen Like Thieves and especially Kick.
Meet Me In Montauk 