INXS "Kick" [1987]

Not sure what the big idea was -- consciously making a straight-up pop band like INXS as moronically vacuous as your average hair-metal group of the day, but it must have had something to do with the perpetual "lowest common denominator" philosophy of major record labels. INXS had it all, on the surface -- the winner of the Jim Morrison lookalike contest, backed by a bunch of yuppified weenies who wouldn't dare steal his spotlight, ripped off Prince synths and Hall & Oates saxes -- but underneath was as purely empty as the stock market bubble that crashed, curiously, the exact week "Kick" was released. With processed rock so flagrant it'd make Billy Idol blush, INXS had sure come a long way from their flop of a career as a failed white Australian ska band. They then became perhaps the most popular group to drink wine coolers to, and left the same sickly sweet aftertaste as well. In retrospect, it's like they were daring grunge music to come "kick" their ass, though INXS did get to bask in their own stench of success long enough to foster drug addiction and give Depeche Mode its entire blueprint for a comeback a few years later. Revisiting this album after so long makes it crystal clear the 80s were paying for their various purges throughout the decade and feeling quite ill by this time; remember watching Reagan testify he knew nothing about Iran-Contra? Yeah -- this album gives you the same queasy feeling.