Kick --- INXS --- 1987
Another of those albums I bought but never bothered with the rest of thier discography. There's something about "Kick"; it highlights INXS at the absolute top pf their game, when the world was at their feet and they could do no wrong. Despite having been together since 1980 and this being their sixth album, it was only with the previous one, "Listen like thieves", that they became even widely known to the world at large, but on "Kick" they blew the market apart.
With no less than four hit singles, including the gorgeous "Never tear us apart", INXS can't put a foot wrong here. From the opener "Guns in the sky" with its sparse percussion and rapid-fire vocal to the manic closer "Tiny daggers", with its keyboard riff reminiscent of Stewart's "Tonight I'm yours", it's a joy throughout and one of those albums I play every single track on. The singles are of course great but it's in tracks like "Calling all nations", the clever "Mediate" (where every line is a word ending in -ate) and the bombastic title track itself where this album really shines.
It also seems that after this, though they would have more hit singles, the band were beginning to fade as a force. So often it's the way: you struggle for years, have a massive hit album and become a star and then can't follow that up. INXS never did, and with the sad death of Micheal Hutchence, I suppose they never will now. But it remains a testimony to the very best these sons of Australia could do.
Kick? It does, and in a very good way.
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. Mystify
10. Kick
11. Calling all nations
12. Tiny daggers