Kick – INXS (1987)

January 30, 2026

Originally formed in Sydney in the late 70s as the Farriss Brothers, INXS cut their teeth in the early 80s with a string of albums that weren’t particularly successful outside of their home country. But with 1984’s The Swing and 1985’s Listen Like Thieves reaching #52 and #11 in the US, respectively – along with positive critical reviews and a top five single with “What You Need” – they had achieved some name recognition and enough momentum to set them up for what would become the apex of their career – 1987’s Kick. 

For their sixth studio album, INXS wanted to make a record where every single track was good enough to be a standalone single, leading to a much more pop-oriented direction than they had chased in their past releases. And unlike their prior work, the band ceded control of all songwriting duties to guitarist Andrew Farriss and lead singer Michael Hutchence, who decided to try to blend the funk and soul influences they had worked into The Swing with the mainstream rock sound (heavily inspired by Led Zeppelin and XTC) that they had achieved with Listen Like Thieves – ultimately achieving dance-rock perfection that would catapult them to a whole different level of fame and commercial success. 

INXS pose for a photo shoot

But despite what Kick would eventually become, executives at Atlantic Records initially disliked the album and believed that its funk influence and danceability could alienate the rock fans who had made their prior record so successful. But unbeknownst to them, the band’s manager would conspire with the label’s radio promotion division to create a grassroots campaign focused on marketing the lead single, “Need You Tonight,” to college radio stations. On top of the heavy airplay, the band would focus the early stages of their tour on university auditoriums and college bars, ultimately leading to it becoming a smash hit among what is arguably the most important demographic for commercial success. The album’s four top five singles –  “Need You Tonight” (#1), “Devil Inside” (#2), “New Sensation” (#4), and “Never Tear Us Apart” (#7) – would launch the record beyond college campuses and into the top echelons of mainstream success, eventually reaching its peak at #3 on the Billboard 200.

The success of Kick comes unquestionably as a result of its lethal combination of funky bass lines, catchy guitar riffs (none more addictive than Farriss’ work on “Need You Tonight”), and the seductive lyrics and vocal delivery of Hutchence. Most of the tracks throughout the record are a bit thematically cliché – focusing on sexual desire and the fast paced rock star life – but are carried by the raw charisma and effortless sex appeal of the band’s frontman. To me, however, the album’s strongest lyrical moments come when INXS decides to get a bit more serious, notably with the skewering of Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (mocked at the time as the “Star Wars Initiative”) on “Guns in the Sky;” the hypnotizing, spoken word track “Mediate,” which tackles everything from Apartheid to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; and the self-reflective, philosophical explorations of what it’s like to be a human being on “Wild Life,” “Calling All Nations,” and “Tiny Daggers.” But undoubtedly, the highest point on Kick comes with the simple, yet devastatingly romantic “Never Tear Us Apart” – which combines a synthesized orchestral sound with dramatic vocal pauses and powerful injections of instrumental sections throughout (most notably, a fantastic sax solo by Kirk Pengilly). 

Hutchence at the absolute peak of his powers

The excellence of Kick as one of the best dance-rock records of the entire decade cannot be overstated, and it truly feels like one of those albums that just perfectly encapsulates the moment it was released. When I try to imagine what 1987 looked, sounded, and felt like – I can hear “Need You Tonight” playing at a bar and I can see a semi-animated Michael Hutchence (decked out in a leather jacket with no undershirt) dancing on MTV. The album (and particularly its four hits) is a masterful demonstration on how to make club music with guitars, which rivals some of the greats who perfected the art in years prior, including Billy Idol, Phil Collins, David Bowie, and Talking Heads. And the brilliance of Hutchence as a sex symbol frontman – who captured something akin to if Mick Jagger had been in his prime in the 1980s – takes things to a whole different stratosphere than many of the band’s peers. 

Unfortunately, the good times wouldn’t last forever – as INXS would slowly lose steam during the popularization of grunge rock in the 90s, and ultimately tragedy would strike with Hutchence’s suicide in 1997. But despite what may have been a bit of a slow start to the band’s career, and what was certainly a devastatingly painful end of a great artist’s life, Kick stands the test of time as an all-time dance-rock masterpiece and a crucial component of the story of popular music in the 1980s.