24-05-2025
INXS achieve stunning chart milestone one decade after splitting up
INXS have hit a new peak in the music charts, more than a decade after the iconic Australian band broke up, and 40 years after the initial release of their breakthrough album, Listen Like Thieves.
Originally released in October 1985, the Sydney outfit's fifth album was the first to make its mark on a global scale.
Listen Like Thieves boasted a number of successful singles, including the title track, as well as Kiss the Dirt (Falling Down the Mountain), This Time, and What You Need – which peaked at No.2 in Australia and No.5 on Billboard's Hot 100.
But this week, INXS has stormed the charts in the United Kingdom thanks to the 40th Anniversary re-release of the album.
Listen Like Thieves is topping four separate rankings in the UK, most of which did not exist when the record was originally released.
It has immediately become INXS' highest-ever peak on the Official Album Sales chart, debuting at No.16.
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The band had been together for 35 years when drummer Jon Farriss made the announcement that INXS would no longer be touring together at a November 2012 concert at Perth Arena.
They were supporting Matchbox Twenty.
'We've done the album like a live show and what is there is there,' frontman Michael Hutchence told Rolling Stone in 1985.
'We want to present this record as a band – the idea of six people playing together and using traditional sounds.'
Never-before-heard INXS demos, featuring vocals from late frontman were released to mark the milestone 40th anniversary.
The extra tracks were released on May 9 as part of the reissue of the the rockers' 1985 album, which reached number one in Australia.
Among the unreleased songs is a candid studio moment where Hutchence's charismatic voice echoes through early takes of their '80s hit track This Time.
The anniversary edition has reignited nostalgia and appreciation for INXS' enduring legacy, under the guidance of executive music producer Giles Martin.
INXS saxophonist Kirk Pengilly said compiling the tracklist was a moving experience.
'I did get emotional with this, because there were some out-takes of the banter between us all,' he told The Daily Telegraph.
'But we didn't keep a lot of that stuff, so I was really surprised when the tapes turned up. So this is pretty special, a real time capsule.'
The band conquered the world with their 1985 album, which reached number 11 on the US Billboard chart and went double platinum there.
It also charted in New Zealand, the UK and Canada.
The re-release has catapulted the band back into the to the Official Album Download chart for the first time since 2012.
The rockers continued to perform with singer Michael Hutchence until his tragic death in Sydney in 1997, where he committed suicide in a hotel room.
Hutchence died at Sydney's Ritz Carlton, now known as the Intercontinental Hotel Double Bay, while depressed and under the influence of alcohol and drugs.
His partner, Paula Yates, claimed a year before her own death that Michael likely died accidentally while choking himself for sexual pleasure, as the pair had engaged in similar sex games.
A post-mortem examination found alcohol, cocaine, codeine, Prozac, Valium and other prescribed benzodiazepines - or 'benzos' - in Hutchence's urine and blood.
In late 1995, Hutchence told British music magazine Vox: 'I don't wanna be a f***ing cliche. I don't need to be dropping off in a hotel bath.
'I've come close, though. I'm surprised I've survived and so are a lot of my friends.'
The Australian group were one of the world's most successful rock bands in the late '80s.
Following their formation in 1977, they stormed the charts with songs including Need You Tonight, Good Times, New Sensation and Kick.
They are one of Australia's highest-selling bands of all time, with over 50 million albums sold worldwide.
Their 2011 greatest hits album has spent a record 623 weeks on the ARIA top 100 albums chart.
Its success followed the release of the 2014 Channel Seven mini-series about the band called Never Tear Us Apart.
