INXS’ fourth album, The Swing, doesn’t have the important or industrial cachet of their career-defining Kick, but it nonetheless stakes its declare as probably the most pivotal title within the band’s canon.
First launched early in April 1984, The Swing offered the steadily rising Aussie outfit with their first home No.1, but it surely was the album’s inventive advances that actually set it aside from what had come earlier than. Up thus far, INXS’ total sound had primarily drawn upon post-punk and new wave, however as The Swing’s producer, Nick Launay, so vividly put it within the guide 100 Greatest Australian Albums, the group’s “post-punk affectations and New Romantic plumage have been now fading away, revealing a rock band with funk leanings and pop instincts.”
Hearken to The Swing on Apple Music and Spotify.
“We wished to remain true to our perception”
On reflection, all of the indicators pointed to INXS reaching a serious breakthrough by 1983. Lengthy since tipped for greatness again house, they’d gigged solidly for six years and made their first foray into the US on the again of their critically acclaimed third album, 1982’s Shabooh Shoobah, which cracked the Billboard 200’s Prime 50 and yielded a gold disc within the course of.
The Swing’s genesis additionally traces again to the US, the place INXS hooked as much as report the album’s lead single, “Unique Sin,” with Stylish legend Nile Rodgers in September 1983. Having lately helmed David Bowie’s multi-platinum Let’s Dance album, Rodgers was one of many period’s hottest producers and was eager to work with INXS after an preliminary assembly in Canada.
“We’d requested Nile to return and see our present, as we had listened to his album The Land Of The Good Groove and he stated he’d wish to report with us,” keyboardist Andrew Farriss recalled for the 2017 reissue of Kick.
“Michael and I put collectively ‘Unique Sin.’ Nile favored it and we went to [New York’s] Energy Station to report. Again then, popping out of the 70s, the Stylish funk period, you had Speaking Heads and Blondie who have been actual trailblazers who stayed true to their perception – and we thought we wished to do this, too.”
A artistic reinvention
INXS’ Nile Rodgers collaboration dramatically raised the band’s profile, as “Unique Sin” rewarded the group with a breakout worldwide hit and their first Billboard Sizzling 100 success.
Extra considerably, nonetheless, “Unique Sin” was a smooth, angular funk-pop hybrid that signaled a brand new course for the group as they relocated to the UK to report the majority of The Swing with Midnight Oil/Nick Cave producer Nick Launay at Virgin Information’ Manor Studio in Oxfordshire.
Taken as an entire, the album proved that INXS have been properly on the best way to alchemizing one thing distinctive from rock, funk, and the quickly altering tendencies on the dancefloor. The mammoth beats and monster grooves that offered the inspiration for tracks equivalent to “Love Is (What I Say)” and “Melting In The Solar” confirmed that Jon Farriss and Garry Beers had change into a formidable rhythm part, whereas the infectious melodies and killer choruses driving “Burn For You,” “Dancing On The Jetty” and the electro-tinged “I Ship A Message” proved past affordable doubt that Hutchence and Andrew Farriss have been quick creating into considered one of up to date pop’s most completed songwriting groups.
Astutely described as a “reinvention” by Nick Launay, The Swing allowed INXS to get a well-deserved foot within the door of the mainstream. Constructing on the success of “Unique Sin,” the album topped the Australian charts for 5 weeks and solely narrowly missed out on making the Prime 50 of the Billboard 200 within the US. Crucially, its Prime 40 success in territories starting from Canada to the Netherlands and France (the place “Unique Sin” went Prime 5) additionally set the scene for INXS to go away a extra substantial world footprint with 1985’s assured Pay attention Like Thieves.
The Swing may be purchased right here.