At the time, Hutchence was staying at an apartment in Hong Kong, so Andrew Farriss flew out there to meet him. When the band was getting ready for a European tour, Chris Thomas persuaded them that they needed to come up with some more hits. In 1986, INXS rented out the entire Sydney Opera House to use as a practice space, but they still didn’t have all the songs that they needed. Shabooh Shoobah went gold, and the single “The One Thing” became INXS’ first US chart hit, peaking at #30.įollowing up Listen Like Thieves was a daunting task. Hutchence had a face built for MTV, so that helped, too. The band toured the US a lot, opening for new wavers like Adam And The Ants and the Stray Cats. The band eventually got an international deal, and their third album, 1982’s Shabooh Shoobah, was their first to get an American release. INXS’ early singles were twitchy, horny new wave. The band released their self-titled debut in 1980, and they started scoring Australian chart hits almost immediately. Midnight Oil’s manager took on INXS as a client, and he got them signed to an Australian indie. (Midnight Oil’s highest-charting American single, 1987’s “Beds Are Burning,” peaked at #17.) The Vegetables became INXS, and they played their first show under that name in 1979. That roadie suggested that they should call themselves In Excess instead. Much of the time, they were opening for fellow Aussie band Midnight Oil, and one of Midnight Oil’s roadies pointed out that the Vegetables was a stupid name for a band. They moved back to Sydney and started playing on the Australian pub circuit. That’s where the band, then known as the Farriss Brothers, first started playing shows.Įventually, the Farriss Brothers changed their name to the Vegetables. The other members of the band didn’t want to replace Jon, so they all uprooted themselves and moved to Perth as well. Youngest brother Jon was still in high school at that point, so he had to move with them. Hutchence came back, but the Farriss parents moved from Sydney to Perth shortly thereafter. In 1976, Hutchence’s parents broke up, and Hutchence went to live with his mother in Los Angeles for a little while. It would be a while before the band could gel. Some other local teenagers got in on it, too. For a little while, Hutchence would mess around in a garage with Farriss brothers Andrew, Tim, and Jon.
(When Hutchence was born, the #1 song in America was Johnny Preston’s “ Running Bear.”) Hutchence and family returned to Sydney in time for him to go to high school, and that’s where he met Andrew Farriss, the man who would become the keyboardist, guitarist, and primary songwriter for INXS. Hutchence was born in Sydney, and he spent most of his childhood in Hong Kong. In the ’80s, Hutchence did what anyone who looked like him in the ’80s would’ve done. If he were young today, Hutchence would probably be an Instagram influencer. He had presence - the confidence and charisma that comes from being impossibly handsome. Hutchence was never a virtuoso singer, but that didn’t matter. You can’t look as good as Michael Hutchence and have a normal life. He was so sexy that it repeatedly got him in trouble. He looked unreal, impossible - an illusion, a mirage. Michael Hutchence, longtime frontman of INXS, was sex on toast. The only real problem with singing “Need You Tonight” at karaoke is that I can’t be as sexy as Michael Hutchence when I’m singing it. I am blessed with both of those things, which means I can sigh and hiccup and moan my way comfortably through “Need You Tonight.” I can at least attempt to do all that while looking sexy.
To sing “Need You Tonight,” all you really need is a deep-enough voice and a sense of rhythm. “Need You Tonight” is a song driven by nervousness. If you’re nervous to sing in front of people, that’s fine, too. If you don’t have a great voice - and I don’t - then you can get away with just whispering and gasping through most of it. Vocally, “Need You Tonight” requires a breathy and understated delivery. “Need You Tonight” is a great song, but it’s not a complicated one, and it does not require a rocket launcher of a voice. To my mind, and for my purposes, there has never been a better karaoke song than “Need You Tonight,” the sole Hot 100 chart-topper from the Australian band INXS. In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present.
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