Michael Hutchence. Largely forgotten?*

LoL. That's what I thought. I never heard anything about him struggling with his sexual orientation, but I wouldn't doubt if he did experiment with other men.

 

I'm in the minority I think. I only really listen to the final three albums (WTWYA, FMDH and EW)

X and Kick are the two albums I avoid

 

and this is how ridiculous rumors start

There used to be a woman who had a blog claiming a love affair with Michael Hutchence in the 80s among many, many other things. Hopefully now she's locked away in a mental institution. Believe the blog was called "Michael Hutchence and me." It's unfortunately pulled down now so you can't read the narcissistic schizophrenic mumblings.

 

Unfortunately?

 

Except I didn't say he did sleep with other men as a fact. I said I wouldn't doubt if he did experiment. You don't see the difference in the two statements?

 

It's good it's gone but unfortunately I can't provide any of the mountains of wonderful material from it. I found it somewhat disturbing but funny at the same time.

 

Doesn't matter if you said it definitely or not.

 

My opinion is INXS didn't really market MH as some sort of heart throb or charismatic front man. He had a great voice, for sure. For a while a couple INXS tunes were in constant rotation on stations like BOB and maybe they still are. But unlike Jim Morrison, I don't know what Hutchence actually looked like. I don't know if it's their estate or some savvy agent, but people like Morrison, Jimi, Marilyn, even Otis Redding and Barbara Streisand, get their mugs plastered on every album and every poster around. That alone makes us fond of them, I would say. (I haven't read the whole thread so apologies if someone else has said same.)

 

a-ha were huge in Europe, though. They've got around twice the monthly Spotify visitors as INXS, and the streams for "Take On Me" alone dwarf the streams for the Top 10 INXS songs. I'm surprised to see several other songs clear 10 million streams as well. So it's not all "Take On Me", but the fact it's become an '80s perennial in the US certainly boosts their numbers.

Toto has a whopping 12 million monthly visitors, which I find shocking. A big chunk of that is "Africa", which is even more popular than "Take On Me". But "Hold The Line" is closing in on 200 million streams, and "Rosanna" has going on 100 million. Even their lesser hits have 10 - 30 million streams. It looks to me like people are coming for the big hits but sticking around for more. I always pegged this stuff as well-played but disposable, but it seems to have survived the cultural time firewall to live on in the 21st century.

Who knew?

 

Uh, where did I say that? Can you quote that? I've been very careful to post facts. I've actually been the one citing the chart performance of their singles and albums, as well as sales figures.

But that's really only relevant to how big they were (or weren't, depending on who you're comparing them to). It doesn't answer the question the thread posed. I've turned to Spotify for that as the best-available proxy that provides actual facts and not the opinion of someone's mum...

 

Maybe, but is there any evidence she was wrong? My impression is he'd had arguments with Geldof before without attempting suicide. Yates had to have a reason for saying what she did. I know junkies say all kinds of crazy crap, but they also often blurt out inconvenient truths... Also, Yates might have been originally lying about what Hutchence originally told her on his final call with him, in order to make Geldof look like the bad guy.

I've always thought the parallels to the death of David Carradine were undeniable.

 

Michael had a relationship with Angie Burdon, Eric Burdon's ex-wife, in the 80s. Angie said he was into "kinky" sex whatever that means. Sadly Angie died in a drug-related incident a few years later.

 

Picked up 'Underneath The Colours' last year from a local thrift.
An interesting listen.

 

Underneath the Colours is one of their most unfairly maligned albums. Love tracks like Follow, Stay Young, Night of Rebellion, Fair Weather Ahead etc. Stay Young is one of my all time favorites by them. I never get bored of that one.

 

I found it quite enjoyable
Quite shocked to actually come across it.
I don't even remember seeing it at retail decades ago.

 

You did right here Mr yee of short memory. Oh, and a lot of what you've posted is your own opinion, not facts, or chart performance numbers.

 

It wasn't released in the US initially. It was released in Australia in 1981 on the Deluxe label they were originally on. It came out on Atco in the US after the release of The Swing so circa 1984.

This may be my all time favorite INXS track, on the next album Shabooh Shoobah. Video was quite rare at one point in decent quality:

 

Actually, having gone back and looked at their discography again, it completely supports the assertion they only had "a few" hits here in the US. I count just 7 Top 20 singles, and two additional Top 40 singles. Their albums did comparatively better, but then they were big during the era of peak album (and diminished single) sales. Even there, they managed only 4 Top 20 albums during Michael's lifetime.

That all adds up to "a few" to me.

If you want a band that had more than a few look at Journey. They had I think 17 Top 40 singles. That's an impressive run.

 

U2 had 16 Top 40 hits in the US by the way, scattered over decades. They didn't have 1 and 1/2 hot albums here and then essentially vanish.

 

Traditionally, "a few" is three. You could have said "a handful" but you'd still be inaccurate for a factual sake. You neglected to mention that here in the US they also had one Gold, two Platinum, two 2xPlatinum and one 6xPlatinum albums. Plus an additional Gold and three more Platinum albums if you also count the live and hits collections. They also had an additional 8 singles that charted outside the Top 40, yet still within the Top 100. So as you can see, quite a bit more than "a few", or your definition of it.

Also, aren't you the one who brought Amy Winehouse into the mix on this discussion? Here's some factual chart numbers for comparison sake. In the US, Winehouse had one, count it, 1, Top 10 that charted at #7. Her biggest album only went Double Platinum. That's a good damn site shy of the numbers INXS have in the US. Yet somehow she's more culturally significant (at least mainly to you) or somehow better than INXS? Thing is, though, in 10 or 20 years, she'll likely be largely forgotten about, too. She was her generation's version of Alanis Morissette or Lauryn Hill. Personally, I'll take the likes of Michael Hutchence and INXS any day of the week over her or her not very original music, as she has never done much of anything for me. But it's all relative. If you want to feel and believe what you want about her, have at it. I won't stop you. Just do those of us who feel similarly about the artist we like the courtesy of the same.

 

Actually, the OP brought up Amy Winehouse. Which is a bit stupid in the first place. But in any case, the arguments here tend to run in circles. If you bring numbers up, someone will bring up influence, if you bring up now, someone will bring up then, if you bring up credibility, someone will bring up popularity, and so it goes. But yeah, outside of the few years after her death, I don’t think Winehouse is generally considered a household name anywhere. She may be more influential to popular artists in the charts today, but that is a different question is it not? I don’t see many bands influenced by Nirvana today and most of the bands they did influence were pretty ****e and most are forgotten now or went on the create better music once breaking free of that era. Collective Soul anybody? Creed. Ugh. Even Bono didn’t like Nirvana when they were active in same period.

 

Surprised no-one's mentioned this vinyl reissue yet. Dekadance was hugely popular in Australia in 1985 (reaching #2) but it was only available on cassette and is the biggest collector's item in the INXS catalogue. It looks like this hit stores in Europe a few weeks ago but was a mispress?

INXS - Dekadance

 

There's actually two versions of Dekadance. That reissue is based on the later cassette but this was the original:

 

I wish Dekadance was available on CD! A couple tracks from it were on the Shine Like It Does anthology.

 

Yeah, vinyl only reissues are really annoying.