Day After Day #60: Don't Change

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Don't Change (1982) 

The 1980s were a ridiculously long time ago. There was a lot going on, but one thing that's almost forgotten 40+ years later is that INXS was consistently one of the best bands going for most of that decade. They weren't trying to save the world like U2 or Peter Gabriel, they weren't larger than life like Michael Jackson, Prince, Bowie, Madonna or Springsteen, they were just a damn good band. 

INXS could play new wave, pub rock, dance music or mournful ballads, but their secret weapon wasn't so secret: it was frontman Michael Hutchence, who looked like a male model and could move like a combination of Mick Jagger and Jim Morrison. Formed in 1977 in Australia, the band released two albums down under before their third album, Shabooh Shoobah, was released internationally in October 1982. The first single, "The One Thing," became a top 30 hit in the U.S., with the video getting a lot of play on the then-new MTV. 

The band toured the U.S. for the first time in the spring of 1983, opening for Adam and the Ants, the Stray Cats, the Kinks, Hall & Oates, Men at Work and the Go-Gos, as well as on the new wave day of the US Festival.  

"The One Thing" is the big hit from that album and the band's first foray into pop stardom, but the second single, "Don't Change," has the most lasting impact. It's different from a lot of INXS's party rockers in that it's a more philosophical-leaning song. Andrew Farriss begins the song with a majestic synth line before the rest of the band kicks in.

"I'm standing here on the ground/The sky above won't fall down/See no evil in all directions/Resolution of happiness/Things have been dark for too long/Don't change for you/Don't change a thing for me."

"Don't Change" is big and anthemic, with Hutchence and Kirk Pengilly on the chorus providing an added boost that launches the song into the stratosphere. Unlike a lot of the new wave acts that were popping up at the time, INXS had been playing pubs and honing their chops for years, so by this point they were a well-oiled rock machine: in addition to Hutchence, there were three Farriss brothers (Andrew on keys, Tim on lead guitar and Jon on drums), Pengilly on guitar and sax and Garry Gary Beers on bass. 

Whereas many of the songs that were hits in the early '80s are very of their era, "Don't Change" has a timeless feel. It soars and as the last song on Shabooh Shoobah, it served as a launching off point for a very successful decade for INXS.

The band built up steadily, releasing The Swing in 1984 with hit singles "Original Sin" and "I Send a Message"; the album went platinum in the U.S. Listen Like Thieves followed in 1985 and was an even bigger hit, going double platinum with four songs getting radio play; "What You Need" went to #5 on the Billboard Hot 100. That led to the biggest INXS album, 1987's Kick, which had four top 10 singles, including "Need You Tonight," which went to #1. The band was all over MTV and on top of the pop world.

I had been a fan since "The One Thing" came out but didn't buy an INXS album until Listen Like Thieves. A group of us from my college newspaper were in New York City for a conference during spring break of 1988 and were walking past Radio City Music Hall, where INXS was playing a sold-out show the next night. Arthur, our arts editor (who got me in to see The Pursuit of Happiness and Duran Duran a year later), casually mentioned that he had tickets to the show and asked if one of us wanted to go with him. Everyone thought he was joking, but I said sure and a day later, we were sitting in the middle of 6,000 screaming teenage girls. Public Image Ltd. opened the show and it was quite enjoyable watching this crowd try to figure out what John Lydon was all about. Then INXS came out and just slayed; they were a masterful live act (a few years earlier, Rolling Stone had proclaimed them the best live band going). I ended up seeing them a few more times, at UNH on the Kick tour and in Worcester on the tour for their follow-up album X).

Released in 1990, X was less successful than Kick, but it would have had a tough time surpassing an album that went six times platinum in the U.S. alone. Also, three years had passed since Kick's release and musical tastes were changing. Still, it went double platinum in the U.S. and got up to #5 on the album chart. There were three more albums in the '90s with diminishing returns, the last being 1997's Elegantly Wasted. In November 1997, Hutchence was found dead in his hotel room; the coroner ruled it a suicide but some have speculated it was accidental. He was 37.

After a year or so, the band played some shows with a variety of singers, including Jimmy Barnes, Terence Trent D'Arby and Russell Hitchcock of Air Supply. Then in 2004, they participated in a reality show called Rock Star: INXS in which contestants competed to become the band's new lead singer. Eventually, a Canadian singer named J.D. Fortune was named the winner. They recorded a new song and then released an album, Switch, in 2005. They toured together for a few years before firing Fortune in 2009 and then bringing him back a year later. Ciaran Gribbin, a singer from Northern Ireland, became the band's new singer for a tour in late 2011. A year later, INXS announced it would no longer tour.

Despite the cheesy last few decades, INXS left behind a strong body of work that was probably underappreciated in the long run.