INXS - The Swing

INXS’ fourth album, The Swing, doesn’t have the critical or commercial cachet of their career-defining Kick, yet it still stakes its claim as the most pivotal title in the band’s canon.

First released early in April 1984, The Swing provided the steadily rising Aussie outfit with their first domestic No.1, but it was the album’s artistic advances that truly set it apart from what had come before. Up to this point, INXS’ overall sound had primarily drawn upon post-punk and new wave, but as The Swing’s producer, Nick Launay, so vividly put it in the book 100 Best Australian Albums, the group’s “post-punk affectations and New Romantic plumage were now fading away, revealing a rock band with funk leanings and pop instincts.”