REVIEWS:
(reviewed by Nick Karn)
Of course, every serious music fan knows about the existence of this album, one of those huge singles albums of the 80's, and also the one that INXS is most known for. If you ask me, though, it's also one of those albums that, predictably, has built its' entire reputation on like, two, maybe three, huge hit singles, with the remainder of the songs being mostly somewhat enjoyable, but not really special. Fortunately, the overall sound of the band is pretty focused here, as most of the songs showcase the band's style of melodic dance rock, with pleasurable hooks all over the place, good grooves, strong singing, you name it, and the songwriting, other than a couple missteps and a couple singles that manage to rise above the album's usual quality, is pretty even throughout. And most of the songs are short, too (like 2 to 4 minutes long or so) - not excessive, not too overproduced, but still catchy and energetic. You know, the stuff good pop music should be.
Allow me now to point out the songs that, in my opinion, fit into at least one end of the extreme. First, the stinkers: the opening "Guns In The Sky" pretty much defines the terms 'ugly and simplistic', with its' lamebrained two note repeating riff, brainless hook and tuneless middle part, and "Calling All Nations" is such a blatantly obvious rewrite of the rousing jankly guitar anthem "New Sensation" from really early in the album, only without much of a hook of its' own. But speaking of that particular song, now that's one of the more exceptional on here, with a nice chiming guitar line in the same vein as the earlier "Bitch Is Back" from Elton John, and the later "Black And White" from Michael Jackson - a really nice energetically anthemic tune with equally infectious verse and chorus hooks. And of course, the hit ballad "Never Tear Us Apart" impressively manages to use both a string section and a saxophone solo without at all sounding cheesy, but the song's hook is so well-written anyway that those additions are almost secondary.
Perhaps the most famous stretch of the album, though, comes in the sort of suite-like pairing of "Need You Tonight" and "Mediate". The former is, of course, the band's best known song ever, a fixture of 80's compilations and MTV top 100 video countdowns and stuff like that, and it pretty much deserves to be - the minimalist guitar line, light touches of synths, and vocals that alternate between quiet in the verses and energetic and passionate during the 'I'm lonely!' refrain give it a very effective vibe. It segues nicely into the latter tune, an entertaining little throwaway track whose simplistic rushes of phrases where every line rhymes with 'ate' proves to be one of the more entertaining moments of the album (and it spawned a funny "Subterranean Homesick Blues" parody video).
Oh, and then there's the other six songs on here, and this is mostly the 'somewhat enjoyable, but really nothing that special' portion of the album I'm referring to. My favorites of these are probably the closing "Tiny Daggers", which strangely provides an uplifting closure to the album, with its' chorus of 'who put tiny daggers... in your heart' delivered in an uptempo, catchy manner, the groove-based "Wild Life", and maybe the bouncy and exciting singalong "Devil Inside" (though this one might be a little overlong). To a lesser extent, the slowly paced, sexual "The Loved Ones", the vaguely show tune-ish but catchy "Mystify", and the horn-fueled title track are also quite nice. There's not all that much to say about them, but they're enjoyable enough. Let's just say this portion of the album is 'decent', with the highlights elevating the status of the album as a whole more to 'good'. It's certainly worth picking up either way, though.
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