Kick – INXS

Kick, released in October 1987, is the sixth studio album by INXS and represents the band’s commercial and artistic apex. It merges rock, funk, dance, and pop into an energetic, sleek hybrid. The grooves are tight and muscular, drums and bass locked in, while Andrew Farriss’s guitars and synths thread stylish hooks through the mix. Michael Hutchence’s vocal delivery moves between seductive urgency and swaggering confidence, and ballads like “Never Tear Us Apart” provide emotional contrast to dance-oriented tracks. It’s an album of virtuosity and calculated versatility, designed to propel the band into stadium stature. In the context of INXS’s trajectory, Kick crystallized many of their strengths—songcraft, virtuosity, and pop sensibility—while pushing further into mainstream ambition. It spawned multiple hit singles (“Need You Tonight,” “Devil Inside,” “New Sensation,” “Never Tear Us Apart”) and helped shift them from national success to international superstardom. Its legacy remains substantial: it’s considered one of the defining pop-rock albums of the 1980s, and its sound still feels vital rather than dated.

Reviews

“The 30th-anniversary edition of Kick affirms its status as a jewel of ’80s pop-rock.” – Pitchfork

“With its scything, slashing guitars, big, bombastic drums and bass, spacey production, searing sax and Michael Hutchence’s cutely raunchy sexuality, it was one of the defining sounds of the era.” – Classic Pop Magazine