Epi 210: Milestone Memories: Need You Tonight & Beautiful Girl Anniversaries

2025-02-08

With a catalogue as extensive as INXS’, there was bound to be moments in time when certain songs captured the zeitgeist attention of the music buying public and critics. Look no further than January 28th, 1988 when a humble hard working sextet from Australia hit number one on the Billboard Charts with Need You Tonight. A song, that now, sounds so familiar, crisp and radio friendly but then, a new modern twist on funk, soul and pop with sound production so cutting edge, every breath, ooh and a...

With a catalogue as extensive as INXS’, there was bound to be moments in time when certain songs captured the zeitgeist attention of the music buying public and critics.

Look no further than January 28th, 1988 when a humble hard working sextet from Australia hit number one on the Billboard Charts with Need You Tonight. A song, that now, sounds so familiar, crisp and radio friendly but then, a new modern twist on funk, soul and pop with sound production so cutting edge, every breath, ooh and aah sounded like Michael Hutchence was singing it to you directly from your living room. Combined with an innovative, breathtaking and cutting edge video clip, Need you Tonight put INXS into the stratosphere of superstardom and success. MTV awards ensued, world tours were booked and the album Kick had the necessary momentum to spawn 4 subsequent hit singles and international acclaim.

Five years later in February 1993, a less prominent and commercially successful track was released as the fifth single to Welcome to Wherever You are, namely Beautiful Girl. A self-penned track by Andrew Farriss as an ode to new fatherhood, this restrained, mellow and resonant song showcased a maturity, subtlety and consciousness to both the INXS writing and recording process. Charting steadily if not spectacularly, the film clip by Mark Pellington of U2 and Pearl Jam fame would garner a Grammy nomination for Best Video of the Year losing out to Peter Gabriel’s “Steam” clip. That aside, the social conscious messaging of the clip resonated nicely with the lyrical content whilst Michael’s channeling of Lou Reed, circa The Velvet Underground era only added to its worthiness.

So sit back and reminisce as we step back in time and honour two distinct but two important songs in the INXS catalogue that still resonate 37 and 32 years later respectively.

Love and Peace Haydn & Bee

https://www.inxsaccessallareas.com/episodes

https://www.change.org/p/induct-inxs-into-the-rock-roll-hall-of-fame-2025

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