Kick (30th Anniversary Ltd. Edition)

INXS recorded albums made for communal euphoria. With thick bottoms and light funk filigrees, their songs fit all the needs of 1980s pop radio, but it was singer Michael Hutchence who distinguished the Australian sextet from Duran Duran. Simon Le Bon could sing about unions of the snake but not shout, “I’ll take you where you really need to be” as INXS’ hit “What You Need” did. The lead single from 1985’s Listen Like Thieves inaugurated a five-year period during which they were as inescapable on radio and MTV as Whitney Houston, George Michael, and U2. Hutchence’s suicide in 1997 has lent this era a beguiling glow: for a while, INXS earned the right to act as if they were a new sensation, a shimmering novelty instead of vets six albums into a career.

If time has proven Listen Like Thieves a superior album, the 30th-anniversary edition of Kick makes clear why the six-times platinum release is better remembered. Thanks to Chris Thomas’ sumptuous production, miraculously free of the ’80s’ production stereotypes that scolds like to claim are “dated,” Kick fulfills the title’s promise. Besides, Listen Like Thieves didn’t have “Need You Tonight” and a trio of follow-up singles that kept Kick in the Top 30 for close to a year. By the time the album/tour cycle expired, INXS were one of the world’s most popular concert draws, competing with U2, especially in South America (where they remain, according to conversations with my students, as beloved and canonical as U2).

Meanwhile, one thing hasn’t changed: Kick sounds fucking great blasting from the car. This edition makes the point rather too sumptuously: a three-CD/one Blu-ray set, including a Dolby surround-sound version of the original release and a welter of previously available demos and 7” and 12” mixes. In case you don’t need the Kookaburra Mix of “Guns in the Sky” as much as I do, starting with “Need You Tonight” is a good idea. Before it hit No. 1 in January 1988, INXS’ biggest American hit sounded like a classic upon its release, and like many such miracles, its simplicity was the key. Guitarist-keyboardist Andrew Farriss, co-writer of many of the band’s hits, claimed that “Need You Tonight” came to him while waiting for a cab to pick him up at the airport; when he got to Hong Kong, he and Hutchence finished the lyrics.