INXS has set a May 1 release date for their audiophile-vinyl reissue of Kick, their career-best-selling 1987 album with six million in U.S. sales alone. The Rhino high-fidelity LP was cut from the original tapes by remastering guru Kevin Gray and will be pressed on 180-gram black vinyl.
The LP format also allows for a glossy gatefold packaging with newly written liner notes by Rolling Stone senior editor David Fricke. This release is limited to 5,000 individually numbered copies. Preorders are already underway.
As the sessions began for Kick, INXS was four albums into their career – and clearly on the cusp of something big. They’d soared into the Billboard Top 5 in 1985 with the lead single Listen Like Thieves, “What You Need,” featuring words from frontman Michael Hutchence and music by keyboardist Andrew Farriss. But how to move forward?
What Made INXS’ ‘Kick’ So Special?
“That songwriting partnership certainly worked – and it worked better than ever on that album,” INXS producer Chris Thomas later recalled. “The massive success of ‘What You Need’ gave Andrew and Michael the optimism and confidence they needed to go further.”
They decided to blend the harder edges of Listen Like Thieves with the grooves found on 1984’s Swing. “The melding of funk and rock was always in our heads,” Andrew Farriss told Music Radar. “We were very excited about the idea of overlaying two types of songs and genres together.”
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Back then, this was groundbreaking. “Kick was so radically different from anything being played at the time on the radio or MTV,” original VJ Alan Hunter told Billboard. “The big question was, what was it trying to be? Dance music? Straight-ahead rock? Some kind of funk-rock hybrid? It didn’t fit in an easy niche.”
Whatever Kick was, it worked: The LP also reached a career-best No. 3 on the Billboard 200, while spinning off four U.S. top 10 singles including “New Sensation,” “Never Tear Us Apart,” “Devil Inside” and the chart-topping “Need You Tonight.” This was a first for INXS, though they later topped the mainstream rock charts with 1990’s “Suicide Blonde.”
Thomas was serving as producer for the second of three consecutive INXS albums, and he’d developed a clearer vision of what they should sound like in the studio. “Chris understood the band,” guitarist Tim Farris remembers in the new liner notes. “He said, ‘My goal is to make you come across on record the way you do live, which — and these were his exact words — you haven’t done yet.'”
A classic-era band photo of INXS. (Fryderyk Gabowicz, Getty Images)
The Career-Making Song That Almost Got Left Off
To keep their momentum going, Fricke writes that the group also adopted a “less is more” philosophy to make this historic LP stand out. “The space on Kick wasn’t an accident,” Andrew Farriss adds in the Kick liner notes. “We realized that if this album was to be a success, it’s gotta be simple. There’s not much in it – but what’s in it is damn good.”
Kick was mixed by Bob Clearmountain, then in the midst of an impressive run that included David Bowie‘s Let’s Dance in 1983, Bruce Springsteen‘s Born in the U.S.A. in 1984 and the Pretenders‘ Get Close in 1986, among others. Clearmountain says he’ll never forget hearing this material for the first time. “Chris played me the whole album,” he remembers, “and I was overwhelmed: ‘My God, this is fantastic.'”
Listen to Tim Farriss of INXS on the ‘UCR Podcast’
Ironically, “Need You Tonight” was a last-minute add. Andrew Farris said he was getting into a cab when its familiar riff came to him. He rushed back upstairs to begin the original demo. Handed a cassette recording of the rough sketch, INXS’ late singer Hutchence said, “Give me five or 10 minutes.” That’s how quickly the best-known INXS single came together.
This special reissue of Kick arrives as voting continues following the first-ever Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nomination for INXS in its nearly 50-year history. Inductees are expected to be announced next month. The gala ceremony will be held in the fall.
Watch INXS’ ‘Need You Tonight’ Video
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Gallery Credit: Nick DeRiso
