“Listen Like Thieves” – INXS
Already Friday of the first full week of 2016. Hard to believe we have just 51 weeks left before 2017. Which means only 50 weeks of shopping until Christmas. Better get a move on!
If my records are accurate, I’ve never shared an INXS track in the Friday Vids series. Which seems like a terrible oversight. As I’ve discussed with a few of you, I think INXS is a wildly underrated band. Sure, people acknowledge their run of hits in the mid-to-late 80s. But I think most folks forget how good their secondary hits often were, and how solid their albums were. Even into the mid–90s the band was still putting out really good music.
When you see lists of the best bands of their era, though, you rarely see INXS on the list. Perhaps that is because Michael Hutchence was so pretty, and critics discounted the group because of his sex appeal. Perhaps it was because the band was so perfectly, and unapologetically, pop. They lacked U2’s political gravitas or the darkness of other contemporaries like Depeche Mode and New Order. They just put out great pop song after great pop song.
A song like this shows how good INXS was. Odds are it’s not the first one you’ll think of when someone mentions the band. And I’ll bet you forgot how good it is.
Bonus points for the fantastically odd video. The song is pretty timeless, but the video immediately lets you know it’s from the mid–80s.