1320. INXS / Listen Like Thieves. 1985. 4/5

The previous two years leading up to the writing and recording of their fifth album were, for INXS, the reward for all of the hard work the band had put into their music and touring over the course of their career to that date. On the back of their third album, “Shabooh Shoobah”, and the single “Don’t Change”, the band had found some success that took them to the US, where they not only played the US Festival but supported their contemporaries Men at Work on the back of their phenomenal success. This had all led to the production of their fourth album, “The Swing”, one which topped the Australian record charts, and became, at that time, one of the five most successful Australian albums of all time. Through 1984 on the back of this, they toured non-stop across Europe, the UK, the US and Australia.
Although the band had recorded “The Swing” in many different studios and locations, including in New York and the UK, the band returned home to Sydney to begin work on their follow up album. The band employed Chris Thomas to take on the producing duties for the album. Thomas had made his name by working with bands and artists as diverse as the Sex Pistols, the Pretenders, Roxy Music and Elton John, and brought a wealth of experience with him when it came to producing hit singles, something that INXS were very keen to further explore with this new album. Taking up residency at Rhinoceros Studios, the band spent three months through until August of 1985 coming up with the material that would become their fifth, and ground breaking album, titled “Listen Like Thieves”.

There is a school of thought that producer Chris Thomas wanted INXS to create an album that was based around the output of the track “Don’t Change”, the big single and final track from the “Shabooh Shoobah” album. In his excellent article on this album for the Pitchfork website in October 2020, Steve Kandell said as much in these words: “What Thomas was implicitly advocating for over the course of three months in Sydney’s Rhinoceros Studio was an album built out of “Don’t Change.” The final track on Shabooh Shoobah and the band’s usual set-closer, it’s the kind of feel-good, brawny U2 anthem that U2 have spent decades trying to write. Still driven by Andrew’s keyboards, “Don’t Change” felt leaner and less fussed over, destined to be covered by, among many, many others, Bruce Springsteen, a man who also spent a lot of time in 1984 and 1985 thinking about what rock songs for the masses should look like”. To a certain degree this is true. There was a change in direction here that was as much a part of the posturing of the band’s lead singer Michael Hutchence as it was about the coordinating of the song structures to be more in the mould of that track, and of the softening of opinion pieces in the lyrics. The songs here don’t SOUND like “Don’t Change”, but some do possess the uplifting vibe of the music that that song creates, and the result is the uplifting of the track list for this new album.
What makes this intriguing from an historical perspective is that the basis of what drew INXS to their rise in greatness on the world stage was the creation and writing of the songs on this album, in particular the writing partnerships, and in further particular the writing partnership of Andrew Farris and Michael Hutchence. Because this album is where it becomes quite stark as to where the best material is coming from. On the previous album “The Swing”, these two were the composers for the tracks that included “Original Sin”, “I Send a Message”, “Dancing on the Jetty” and “Burn for You” - the songs that really stand out. Here on “Listen Like Thieves” their contributions are “What You Need”, “Kiss the Dirt”, “Shine Like It Does”, “Same Direction” and “One x One”. Andrew also offers “This Time” on his lonesome. Anyone who knows this album will recognise this bundle of songs as the most noticeable on this album. It is why the band’s next album focused solely on the writing of this duo. And the reasons behind that appears obvious here.
Side One of the album is heavily loaded with the best known and most popular tracks on the album. It opens with “What You Need”, the final song composed for the album. Producer Chris Thomas kept pushing the band, saying that they still didn’t have that hit single they needed. While searching through tapes filled with demoes, Tim Farris recalled a song from Andrew called “Funk Song #13” and suggested it would be worth considering. When Thomas heard it, he encouraged the band to work on it, and it was eventually fashioned into what became the album’s lead track and opening single. It went to #5 on the US charts, their first top five single there, and pushed the album and the band into unknown territory. This is followed by the excellent title track “Listen Like Thieves”, with Kirk Pengilly’s saxophone creating its usual pleasant waves through the structure of the song, which bounces along in pleasant style. “Kiss the Dirt (Falling Down the Mountain)” stylistically draws similarities to the sound of the previous album, the softer pull of Hutchence’s vocals and the synth working with the guitar riff of Tim Farriss making for a lead in to the power cranking up into the back third of the song with the harder and ramped up guitars and Michael’s vocals. The waves of the power chords makes for an interesting yet enjoyable journey.
This manoeuvres its way into the midtempo ballad “Shine Like It Does”, a catchy bass driven rhythm from Garry Gary Beers is again accentuates by the beautiful tones of Hutchence’s lower register. His melodic verses on this track are inspired, finding their way to draw in an audience to a song that outwardly should not be as full as it is. This segues nicely into “Good and Bad Times”, with another unusual mix of the synth and guitar shaker riff and the insertion of Pengilly’s sax solo. Again, it's a song that structurally would seem to have no chance of being effective, and yet once again the band has found a way to make this strange collaboration an intriguing one.
The second side of the album opens with “Biting Bullets”, doubling down on the keyboards and synth effects with the guitar and bass taking up residence underneath this. The vocals here are less appealing, setting themselves on a plane that is probably effective for the track as written but don’t offer anything outstanding, something that Michael Hutchence is usually able to achieve no matter what the song. It is followed by the other big single from the album, “This Time”, Andrew’s solo contribution to the writing. Michael doesn’t oversell the vocal which helps to make this song as good as it is, he doesn’t try to over- sing or take up a position through the verse or chorus that takes away from the music that has been written. His melody through this gives the song its depth, and encompasses the instruments nicely. A rare INXS instrumental follows in “Three Sisters”, composed by Tim Farriss, and nicely draws in the outer sounds, incorporating bird calls and natural woodland pieces mixed with the synth and sax to evoke a wonderful tapestry upon which the song bases itself. The three songs that close out the album - “Same Direction”, “One X One” and “Red Red Sun” - all perform the duty of tracks that are not chosen to be single releases, they all have the solid rock formation that all excellent albums must have to give them that full credibility. “Same Direction” is an easy listening pop rock song that holds its own within the basis of the album. “One by One” has the sax as a dominant instrument throughout, almost making it sound like a brass band song rather than the new wave styled instrument that INXS have always utilised it as. And the rocking closer “Red Red Sun” gives some momentum to the album as it plays itself out.

INXS’s previous album, “The Swing”, was one of the first half a dozen albums I ever bought for myself. That was based on the enjoyment of the first couple of singles they released off that album, and the fact that it was at this time that I really wanted to start to listen to full albums of bands rather than just what they would play on the radio. I loved that album. I still love it to this day, and I still play it a few times every year when the nostalgia feels kick in.
When “Listen Like Thieves” was released, it was right on the cusp of my impending date with destiny, where I would be embraced by the dark arts of heavy metal and my music focus changed forever. So while I knew and heard often the first two singles released off this album - “What You Need” and “This Time” - the urge to buy the album failed to strike before this other momentous event hit me, and so faded away. I knew the other singles as they were released, but the urge to go back to INXS when I had Iron Maiden and Ozzy Osbourne to discover failed to ignite.
A few years later, I began dating the beautiful girl who would eventually become my wife, and amongst her enjoyment of music was INXS, and one of the albums she owned was this one, and so the first time I actually listened to this entire album was at her home on her parents stereo. And, though still entirely submerged in my heavy metal bubble at that time, I was open to listening to the album and band, if only please the girl I was infatuated with. And, perhaps not surprisingly, I found most of it tolerable, with a couple of dead spots. This resulted in a rediscovery of the band, and also a discovery of other albums I had either passed over or ignored as a result. That vinyl copy of the album was eventually lost, but a CD copy has replaced it over the years in my collection.
In revisiting this album over the last week, I believe my thoughts on it are of a similar nature as to what they were 35 years ago. As described earlier, the vast majority of the great INXS songs of this and the previous album had Andrew and Michael as their composers, and I think the quality shines through there. The singles are the heavy lifters on this album, and the first side of the album does carry the second side. There are similarities though to the previous two albums. “Don’t Change” from “Shabooh Shoobah” does lift the second side of that album enormously, saving it from similar thoughts. The same can be said of “Burn for You” on “The Swing”, it does light up the last three tracks of that album with its greatness. Here on “Listen Like Thieves”, there isn't that enormously brilliant track to help bring a brightness to the concluding songs of the album. They are fine. They are solid, but they don’t inspire or lift. It does affect the end of the album as a result. In saying that, I’ve really enjoyed having the album on again over the last week, a palate cleanser almost to the other albums that have been on my roster for this podcast this week. You can hear on this album, with hindsight, they way the band was progressing from the new wave sound of “The Swing”, to the popular rock that would come on their following album “Kick”. It was a work in process, and this album was that progress. The swan was beginning to be unveiled – it just hadn’t quite made it all the way on “Listen Like Thieves”.