INXS – Need You Tonight
#quotefromthe80s
I need you tonight
Cause I'm not sleeping
There's something about you girl
That makes me sweat
#INXS #NeedYouTonight
Starting with the name! We are talking about INXS, obviously pronounced “In excess” and written always in capitals, one of the iconic groups of the 80s, also because of a frontman who was really over the top, the unforgettable Michael Hutchence, and a fantastic album, Kick which was released in October 1987, and was anticipated, in the last days of September, by the release of a fantastic single, Need You Tonight.
And Michael Hutchence lived it all in excess, from his leading role in the group, to his stories with other icons such as Kylie Minogue (and after all they were Australia’s greatest ambassadors in the 80s), model Helena Christensen, or Paula Yates, former wife of Bob Geldof who shared a tragic destiny with him. And maybe also his death was an excess, never fully explained, as Simon Le Bon had also predicted in a song dedicated to his friend Michael shortly before the tragic ending, so much so that Le Bon never really managed to sing it in full in concerts after his death, overwhelmed by emotion.
Talking about excess, maybe Need You Tonight is too much of a song, if it weren’t sung by Michael Hutchence. But let’s go in order.
At that moment INXS were quite well known in Australia, and they were starting to have some visibility also in the United States: it was therefore time to strike the blow that would have allowed them to break through, or to fail. When INXS presented the album Kick to their record company, the managers thought this record would be more likely to fail than break through, and they didn’t feel like setting up a big tour. INXS, however, somehow succeeded to have at least a test: they managed to organize a tour in American colleges, and with that they would try to convince the record company.
And indeed, despite the colleges being located in smaller cities in the United States, INXS had a resounding success: local radios started broadcasting them, from there they went on national radios, then to MTV and within a few months they found themselves leading the American charts! Thus began the ten most successful years of INXS, but also that period of enormous pressure that Hutchence will eventually no longer be able to withstand.
Need you tonight is a very simple song: it was born naturally from the inspiration of Andy Farriss, the group’s multi-instrument-player, who managed to finish the base of the song on the last day of recording in a Hong Kong studio. It is said that before going to the airport he asked the taxi to wait for him for a few minutes because he had to finish saving the song with its electronic tracks. In the previous two weeks he had worked on it with Hutchence: Farriss created the main base of the song in about one hour, and Hutchence created the lyrics almost in one go: in the rest of the time they refined sounds and words.
All in all, the text is quite simple: I would say the inspiration is likely to have come smooth to Hutchence. As we said, Hutchence says quite simple things, which in someone else’s mouth might even seem comical or ridiculous, but of course said by him it’s quite a different story. The song was accompanied by a beautiful video, made by Australian director Richard Lowenstein, based mainly on the overlaying of images of the band members. The result is great, because the graphic effects don’t make the video too abstract, and add some movement.
One last curiosity about Need You Tonight: it seems that Farriss was so convinced of the value of this rhythmic base, that he wanted to try to make alternative songs, and so among the various tests he also created Mediate, the second song of the album, which in fact is a continuation of the base of Need You Tonight, with a different rhythm for the words. On the album there is practically no break between the two songs and if I remember correctly there was also a video with the two songs in a row. The curious thing is that towards the end of Need You Tonight there is an interruption and the song seems to be over, but then it then resumes, and without further interruptions it becomes a different song.
There is no doubt at this point that Need You Tonight is not only a beautiful song, but it brought that touch of genius that made INXS career take off forever, thanks also to the fantastic songs that will follow, starting with their next hit, Devil Inside, which will be released in few months.
INXS on Wikipedia
Views: 1338
