Kick --- INXS --- 1987 (Atlantic)
Their sixth and most successful album, “Kick” took INXS to their creative and commercial peak. Four hit singles, world domination and a four-letter acronym becoming a household name. It wasn't going to get any better than this. And it didn't. After the release of this album their popularity began to slide, and with the tragic suicide of lead singer Michael Hutchence in 1997 following the less-than-enthusaistic reception for their eighth album, “Welcome to wherever you are”, the writing was on the wall for this band from Australia.
But in 1987 the good times were rollin', and “Kick” broke INXS wide open commercially and worldwide. Having heard the title track to their previous album “Listen like thieves”, and mistakenly thinking they were called “Inks”, I bought “Kick” and was amazed (and still am) at how consistently excellent it is. Not one, single, bad track. Go back and read that again. That's right: every track is good, and some are quite brilliant. Almost every song was written by Hutchence and Andrew Farris, guitarist and keyboards player, and amazingly, given its now-legendary success, Atlantic hated the album so much that originally they tried to stop the guys from releasing it, offering them big money to go back and record something else. Bet those guys feel foolish now!
It starts off brash and bold, with loud, almost sparse drums, as if playing alone in a large empty room, then an angry guitar joins in, with two chords repeated before Hutchence opens his mouth, and the melody continues like that for about two minutes of the two and a half that “Guns in the sky” runs for, with the later addition of a raging guitar solo to punctuate an angry, powerful song about the arms race, then jangly guitar introduces “New sensation”, which would be one of the hit singles from the album. Again, the melody is quite sparse, just guitar, bass and drums backing Hutchence's vocal, a kind of mix of dance and punk, before keys and brass come in to fill out the track, with a really cool sax break (when is sax
not cool?) from Kirk Pengilly. There are three guitarists in INXS, so I can't say with any certainty who's playing on which track, unfortunately, as I'd like to give credit where it's due. It does hoever seem to be Andrew Farriss on the keys, though he also plays guitar.
Almost all of the tracks on “Kick” are three and a half minutes or less, “Devil inside” being the exception, at over five minutes. It's also the most together, musically, with guitar again taking the lead but backed by the rest of the band in a much faster, busier song that was also released as a single, and did, like the others, very well. Hutchence is a little more restrained in his singing here, his voice most of the time lower, feeling no need to shout or scream, and it works very well. It ends on a great keyboard line from Andrew Farriss to take the song to its fade, and we're into their biggest hit, the number one smash “Need you tonight”, with again the melody returning to the sparser feel of the first two tracks, snappy guitar keeping the tune with stabs of synth punctuating Hutchence's vocal delivery, which is again sultry and seductive, and slides like a sinuous sexy snake into “Mediate”, which keeps the same melody but constructs the lyric entirely of mostly single words that rhyme with the title: very effective, with a nice sax solo at the end. I think this track is unique on the album for not having any guitar in it: sounds to me like just keys and drums, with the sax coming in at the end.
“The loved one” sorts that out though, with biting guitar smashing in the intro, a blues kind of melody with Hutchence more animated in his vocals. As I said at the beginning, there are no bad tracks on “Kick”, but if there are weak ones, this one and the one that follows it would be my choices. They're good songs, but compared to the rest of the tracks on the album they come up a little short in my opinion. Not that surprising then to find that this is the only track not written by Hutchence and/or Farriss; it certainly shows. “Wild life” is faster, more lively, but there's something missing there, something I can't quite put my finger on.
All that is soon forgotten though as we reach the standout track, and a song that became one of their signature tunes. The only ballad on the album, “Never tear us apart” is the better for it, with its haunting strings melody which opens and indeed carries the song, Hutchence's vocals the most impassioned I've ever heard them, a false stop about one minute into the track an incredibly effective device to focus the attention on a truly remarkable song, and a powerful sax solo from Pengilly to just pop that little cherry on top of the icing which is already on this magnificent cake.
Hard to follow that up, but “Mystify” is a great little track, almost in the mould of Queen's “Crazy little thing called love”, with finger-clicking, bouncy guitar, a real feel-good song to perhaps lift the sombre, sad mood engendered by “Never tear us apart”, and it's followed by the title track, which comes in on atmospheric keyboards then just explodes into a riot of brass, sax, guitar and drums, with the band bouncing all over the place, everyone having fun. Great hooks, powerful melody and great energy, this would have made a good choice for a single, but was not picked. Pity.
The happy mood continues with “Calling all nations”, more jangly guitar and handclaps, multi-tracked vocals with a sort of combination of “Need you tonight” and “Guns in the sky” and a little piece of “Listen like thieves” in there too, then the album closes on another fast, upbeat, uptempo song, with “Tiny daggers” flying along at breakneck pace, great keyboard hook --- quite similar, very similar in fact, to Rod Stewart's “Tonight I'm yours” --- pulling the song along to its fade.
I didn't buy an INXS album before, or after this, nor do I intend to. I would not in any way consider myself a fan, not even a casual one. But there's something about “Kick” that keeps me spinning it every so often, and unlike a lot of albums I could mention, it's one I can put on and leave to play through from start to finish. If you haven't yet heard this album (PLEASE come out from under that rock!) and want to hear a prime example of a band at their peak, this is the one to go for.
TRACKLISTING
1. Guns in the sky
2. New sensation
3. Devil inside
4. Need you tonight
5. Mediate
6. The loved one
7. Wild life
8. Never tear us apart
9. Kick
10. Calling all nations
11. Tiny daggers