To be honest, the ’80s were kind of a hit-or-miss proposition for me as a music fan. There was some New Wave music that I liked, others I had a much harder time getting into. I liked individual songs more than I liked the bands as a whole. There just didn’t seem to be enough bands with “staying power.”
Cover of Listen Like Thieves
And then, in my mind, there was the Australian band INXS. They definitely had “staying power” to spare.
INXS was a combination of a few different styles and tastes. They were New Wave, they were dance pop, they could grind it out with their guitars with a definite rock flavor, and they had that charismatic presence of lead singer Michael Hutchence that could captivate a huge audience with his style that was part soul and part Mick Jagger.
Hutchence knew how to belt out a tune, and between that and the steady beat — that ever-danceable beat — and that ’80s flavoring of keys and that guitar sound that either went toward New Wave or crunchy metal, they had a sound pretty much all their own.
Hutchence lived the life of a rock star for sure (“Live, baby, live!”), and his choices … well, that’s a story that sadly served to ultimately “tear them apart.” Sad, because they had quite a roll going on for them when they were at their peak, even though their fire cooled a bit even before Hutchence passed away.
Once Hutchence was gone, things just weren’t quite the same, no matter how hard they tried to carry on.
But we still have those great times to remember INXS by, those years when they could captivate millions around the world.
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