It’s a situation many a recording artist has faced: You’ve finally reached the big time, selling millions of copies of your strongest work to date, and gaining riches, fans and respect beyond your wildest dreams.
But while the path to that might be difficult, the hardest part is what comes next.
Delivering the encore.
Australian rock band INXS found itself in that situation after its sixth album, “Kick” established it as one of the biggest bands of the 1980s. Four of the songs off the album reached the top 10, led by that ultimate lesson in funk/rock “Need You Tonight,” the band’s first No. 1 single.
After the hysteria died down, the group took a break from the endless touring and everything that came with the territory of being among the elite. Lead singer Michael Hutchence teamed up with Australian underground musician Ollie Olsen on the underrated experimental “Max Q” album. Guitarist/saxophonist Kirk Pengilly, bassist Garry Gary Beers, and the brothers Farriss — guitarist Tim, drummer Jon and keyboardist/guitarist/songwriter extraordinaire Andrew — all worked on side projects until it was time to deliver once again.
But how do you do that without copying the same blueprint for something that obviously worked before?
For INXS, the answer was “X,” released 25 years ago in September 1990.
The first song, “Suicide Blonde,” laid the groundwork for what to expect from the album: the unexpected. It starts off with a couple of random notes from a harmonica, a signature INXS riff and Hutchence easing the listener into the song before controlled fury breaks out.
Next, the band takes it down a notch with one of its most perfect pop songs, “Disappear.” One of the few songs written outside the Hutchence/Andrew Farriss duopoly (This one was done by Hutchence and Jon Farriss), “Disappear” endears with its vocal stylings and catchy melody.
Following in the footsteps of “Shine Like It Does” from “Listen Like Thieves” and the international smash “Never Tear Us Apart” from “Kick,” “X” did offer a ballad, “By My Side,” which stands out with its dramatic flourishes. And perhaps the funkiest song on the album was the unreleased “Know the Difference.”
That song gives way to the third single released from “X,” “Bitter Tears.”
You know how you have songs that you play on repeat all the time for a couple of days? I played “Bitter Tears” on repeat for months. Literally. It was the culmination of everything I’d been waiting for over the nearly three years between “Kick” and “X”: the perfect song, where every part comes together flawlessly.
But as much as I might think “Bitter Tears” is an epic rock tune, the masses seemed to feel otherwise as it didn’t make much of a dent on the chart. In fact, it was the end of quite an impressive streak by INXS, as their top 10 singles streak ended at six with “Disappear.”
A lot of “lasts” can be attributed to “X” as far as commercial success in the U.S. went for the band. It was the last album to feature any singles that cracked the top 10 of the Billboard Top 40. And keeping along those lines, it was the last INXS album to reach the top 10 of the Billboard Top 200. Sales-wise, it was their last RIAA multiplatinum-certified recording, too.
Even though INXS famously said “Don’t Change,” people’s tastes often do, which left the band unable to replicate the commercial success of “Kick.” But based on quality, INXS acquitted itself beyond measure with “X” — an album with songs that still stand the test of time 25 years later.
