VIDEO DUMP: INXS "DON'T CHANGE" (1982)

This is one of INXS' breakthrough MTV videos, one of the first to make it to the States (after "The One Thing"). I remember the first time I heard of them, when it was announced that they just won a Best New Artist award in Australia. We were shocked because, before this, the only rock band we knew from Down Under was Men at Work. We still didn't know how to pronounce their name (inks?), but they quickly became a favorite with the release of Shabooh Shoobah from whence this song came, almost 25 years ago. This video features the band jumping off a pickup truck and running into our living rooms, literally. It's not much more than a low-budget performance video filmed at a warehouse, but it showed that Michael Hutchence could really move and--wait, why is the keyboard strung up on a rack? This is the 80s, it doesn't have to make sense.

(I just found out that the band formed on August 16, 1977, so this marks their 30th anniversary, of sorts. And while we're talking milestones, happy 50th birthday to guitarist Tim Farris. There, I think that's all I've got.)

I would later play their song "What You Need" on a radio show I guested on in 1985 (WVRM 89.3 FM in Hazlet), for what I believe was the first time ever in the US. That's right, bitches, I premiered it. See, I had just bought a cut-out promo copy of the album Listen Like Thieves, which hadn't even been released yet, at a record store on 8th street in NYC. By the time we went to air I hadn't even heard the whole album, but I knew the groove and the bassline of the leadoff track could not be ignored, and chose that song to play. Later in 1986, it would end up the band's first in a string of Top 10 hits (#5) in the US. I'd like to think that I was a part of that.

INXS was one of the classiest rock bands to come out of the 80s, and their sound still holds up for the most part. I regret that I never saw them play live when Michael Hutchence was still alive (I hear there were always a lot of hot chicks at their shows). I'm going to go watch this and try to forget that whole Rock Star: INXS thing ever happened. (Don't change, my ass.)



INXS "Don't Change" (1982) [YouTube]