Definitely. In Australia, generally, there was no putting on airs and graces as a band. Most bands were pretty much street clothes, and to some degree those clothes pretty much showed where you were coming from.
So I'm spinning the debut cd for the first time in probably 8 years... My apologies to both you and Don Bartley - my copy is 2011 remaster by Giovanni Scatola!
I was surprised how young they were, and since they are good looking guys and one of them is smiling for goodness sake, it didn't strike me as being very rock and roll!
I thought the remasters were loud and badly compressed with no dynamic range as I recall? I never felt the need to find the All the Voices set but I would like to have LPS of the last 2 albums.
Just out of curiosity, I ripped both copies I own of the debut on CD. The first is a copy from 1987, the other being from the 2011 remaster box set. DR Levels: 1987 - DR 13 2011 - DR 8 Not entirely surprising I suppose. Here's the wav files for my favorite track "Learn To Smile" just for the sake of comparison... 1987 - 2011 remaster - I did a playback of several tracks from each, and while the 1987 disc does have better DR, it sounds a bit veiled in comparison to the 2011 remaster. The remaster definitely has volumes pushed up...it's much louder and much more "alive". The bonus being that Michael's vocals also stand out and are a bit more "up front" to my ears as opposed to sounding a bit buried and veiled on the 1987 disc. The down side is that it's a lot more bass heavy and I have to crank it back a notch on my system to accomodate. And, oddly, the cymbals on this particular remastered track sometimes sound great, but the hi-hat is pretty harsh in places, which is a real shame. I'm still happy with the remasters though. I've heard much worse and, while they're far from perfect, they're pretty decent in many respects.
Did you hear it at the time? No. Because I was slightly more than a year old. When did you first hear it? Right after I got into INXS in the summer of 1992 when WTWYA was released. What were, and are your thoughts about it, prior to us having a look at it? I remember liking it so much initially, that I spent dozens of hours tabulating Tim & Kirk's guitar parts for the entire album. In fact, I still have the pages and the original binder. Nowadays, I don't listen to it as much. But then again, that's mainly because my music collection has expanded enormously since then and consequently, some of my favourite artists I don't get back to listening to for months at a time. Anyway, in hindsight, despite several of the songs not being that strong, many of them were definitely punchy or catchy enough to enjoy. And I dig how they pulled off a moderate level of stylistic diversity (pop, rock, ska & new wave) that early on, even though they obviously hadn't fully developed yet. This also applies to Simple Simon & We Are The Vegetables. Impressive. My rating... INXS: 3.5/5
Simple Simon Pretty similar to early XTC tracks in more ways than one. That synthesizer sound really doesn't fit with the other instrumentation, but it makes it special nonetheless. No idea what this song is about. We Are The Vegetables This feels more like a performance by Vyvyan of The Young Ones backed by an energetic punk band jumping in Neil's vegetable garden.
I remember listening to the Underneath the Colours remaster on headphones and hating how it sounded. I looked at the waveform and wasn't surprised. I went ahead and found original cds and original pressings of the albums from then on.
I wonder how many are familiar with Michael's solo work under the name Max Q? The single "Way Of The World" is brilliant and nothing like INXS
I will be "that one guy" but I don't like the debut album at all and consider it the nadir of the catalog. I do like "Just Keep Walking" though! For reference, my favorite album is 1992's underrated masterpiece that we will come to later.
You wouldn't be that one guy, I've never read anything much positive about the album until reading this thread. The Unloved One isn't actually on the album btw I just noticed it's listed for some reason. That was a b-side.
Yea, that's weird. It certainly isn't on the album. The first album it appears on is Inxsive, in a couple of years time. Thanks for pointing that out mate, I missed that.
Even wikipedia incorrectly says this. It says it wasn't included on the US version. Completely made up stuff.
I was going to say if you want a background on the Deluxe era songs, the first 2 albums find "Stay Young the Deluxe Years." It has poor loudness war style remastering which I'm not crazy about but the booklet goes song by song with the band members providing background and stories. Good luck finding the cd though, it seems to be unreasonably overpriced now. I tried to buy one but the seller pulled it down.
Thankfully, I bought it when it first came out nearly 20 years ago. In fact, I just thought of a great idea. I'll type out each song's notes from the band members as this thread progresses...
Yes I was planning on doing it actually when some of the songs came up. I wish every retrospective album had that sort of thing in it.
I didn't realize until too late that Australian Made (Aussie live aid) was on the ABC last night. Just caught the final few minutes with Jimmy Barnes Hutch and friends rocking "Good Time" Might see if I can download it..
Oh I agree. I was impressed that they got 'ringers' that corresponded with the band members. I too, have the blu-ray and it gets repeat viewing.