So fucking sue me. I’m a huge INXS fan. But I must qualify that statement. I’m a huge fan of the albums they made from 1980 to 1985. Everything after ranges from “great” to “will-these-greedy-fuckers-let-the-past-rest-in-peace-finally”. I mean “awful”. It’s a simpler word.
I honestly have never heard a single putrid note of anything the remaining band members have done since 1997. I have no desire to either. This was one of the first bands I got into when I made the switch from only Classical Music to pop when I was 13. INXS was in fact my first “favorite band”.
I even remember how surprised I was when I found out how the band spelled it’s name. It wasn’t spelled “In Excess”! How very creative!
Of course, since I started defying my parents and listening to pop music on the radio back in 1987, the best years of this band’s career, IHMO (In High Mumble Opinion), were already done fer. The first INXS song I heard was “New Sensation”, and the “Kick” album had just come out.
“Kick” ain’t a bad album, but it’s way too glossy and polished to appeal to me much these days. The same can probably be said about all their albums, but everything after “Listen Like Thieves” I consider just “hit-making” – or worse. This band was always in it to make hits, but their first 5 albums are all charged with an energy that never reappeared for them.
That energy actually did peek back in for their last effort, I believe. Which makes the embarrassing way Michael Hutchence died all that more tragic. Seriously, is jerking off not enough fun for some people that they have to hang themselves while they’re doing it? I don’t understand that.
Anyway, just look at me ramble!
Back on topic now… this song is from the band’s 1982 album “Shabooh Shoobah”, which was the first INXS album I got right after I got KICK. It’s got some pretty nasty sound quality… way too much reverb everywhere and loads and loads of noise and tape hiss. I’ve gone and fixed it up as best I could for what I listen to on my iPod, and that’s called “Cheating”.
The last song on that album is “Don’t Change” and I loved the song from the very first time I listened to it. I have never heard the song and not loved it. The live version in the YouTube link suffers from a substandard performance, but it looks to me like that’s because it’s the last number of an energetic show and they’re all tired. That and the drugs are wearing off.
Watching that video reminds me why people make fun of INXS. They look like a bunch of faggots. I feel that I need to say something about my feelings toward gay people when I use the word faggots. Faggots get all hissy and emotional when you call them faggots, apparently.
Seriously, I have no problem with gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered people of any kind. I don’t understand how anyone could hate someone based on what turns them on or what they see as their identity. Faggot jokes aside, I support equality for all those fags and dykes, and I support the right for them to get married to each other and be as miserable as most married couples become.
God damn, am I ever a cynical jerk! Thanks for noticing! I’m also still joking…. you can tell by the way that everything I write is way over the top and not actually funny.
Speaking of “teh gay”, check out the white bandanna worn by the singer. Oh. My. Fucking. God. That’s gay. Also, check out the outrageous use of hair spray. Good lord, so many petrochemicals processed and wasted in that video clip.
I tried to find the actual video of this song. I think it was filmed in either a warehouse or hangar. YouTube is a bitch goddess. Sometimes you find exactly what you’re looking for, and sometimes you find exactly the spot where the lawyers of the Copyright Cartels have marked their territory by shitting and pissing all over the place. Fucking Neanderthals.
So… you’re probably wondering if I have anything else to say about the song, or if I’m going to continue babbling about whatever else pops into my scrambled head.
The singing on the first album is damn near incomprehensible because of Mr. Hutchence’s thick Australian accent. It cleared up with each successive album, until he basically sounded like an American at the mic.
There’s your answer. Turns out I didn’t have anything else to say about the song. I did talk more about the band though… well… about their singer. I wonder if they would have put out more great albums if he hadn’t died. Meh.