So why is INXS’ Kick on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
Kick mKick made me think about our preteen years, the age range when we seem to be most primed to have songs hardwire into our DNA and become music that we’ll hold most closely and dear throughout our lives.
To this day, some decades later, I have a visceral reaction to “Need You Tonight.” Not only does it tie to the phenomenon I mention above, but it also fused with feelings related to various crushes I had back in junior high school.
I honestly don’t even recall who I had these crushes on, but the memory of feeling those crushes – the intensity of them, the near feeling of physical weight on my body from them – remains to this day.
These are feelings we can only feel in such magnitude and intensity when we’re young, yet music can be a nearly magical biological cheat code to unlock those feelings and bring them back.
Now, I’ve made astonishingly clear what my bias is with this one, but I’ll also still argue that it’s a great song, the best that INXS ever produced.
And did I think that Michael Hutchence was cool as hell back in the day?
Hell yes I did.
Steve Huey from All Music has a good take on Kick as a whole:
Stones-y rock & roll, pop, funk, contemporary dance-pop – into a cool, stylish dance/rock hybrid. It was perfectly suited to lead singer Michael Hutchence‘s feline sexuality, which certainly didn’t hurt the band’s already inventive videos.
It’s also a sound that I think of as definitively late 1980s.
Also: very important to note that Kick is jam-packed with smashers.
I’ve come to revere “Mystify” over the years, an incredible and soulful piano-driven pop rocker that shows off Hutchence’s Elton John-esque vocals.
Speaking of the late ‘80s sound, I think that if you asked a ChatGPT-type AI chatbot to spit back the quintessential pop song from 1987, “New Sensation” would hit you in the face.
The range on Kick is impressive, as the gorgeous synth-y ballad, “Never Tear Us Apart,” illustrates.
And then tracks like “Devil Inside” have hooks for days and are super fun.
Pop culture stuff that has something to do with INXS’ Kick
I’d be remiss if I didn’t shout out Beck’s brilliant Record Club project, which has covered INXS’ Kick.
This is from the best 1,000 albums ever entry for Beck’s Colors (#112):
Beck occasionally assembles a group of musicians for something they call Record Club. The idea is that the group gathers and records cover songs of one entire album that they select. They do this all in a single day, and what’s more, every song is a wildly unique spin on the original.
Not every song completely “works,” but that’s almost the point, right? The ones that do hit right are just absolute smashers.
Example: I’m forever deeply and madly in love with this Record Club cover of INXS’ “Need You Tonight” (as part of recording covers of the entirety of the classic Kick, of course). It’s chilled down yet exciting and bursting with life; it’s sexy as hell, really.
And what’s really cool here too is that Beck is just one of many players on this one – he’s credited on keyboard/synthesizer (as Beck Hansen, along with Aaron Hemphill). But it’s chiefly Annie Clark from St. Vincent on vocals (with some help from Angus Andrew) that steals the show on this one.
Here’s the playlist available for the Record Club session for INXS’ Kick.
Some stats & info about INXS – Kick
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Dance Music, Pop Music, Australian Bands
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4.5 out of 5 stars
- When was Kick released? 1987
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #84 out of 1,000
INXS’ Kick on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from INXS’ Kick that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
So slide over here and give me a moment. Your moves are so raw, I’ve got to let you know.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.