John: I was always appreciative of INXS for holding X back until 1990 so I could accurately say their best stuff was back in the ’80s. There are currently 272 used copies of X available on Amazon for one cent each.

Vrabel: Was this the period when INXS was dropping, like, four albums a year? I seem to remember them having a fairly ludicrous output around this time. Not a bad song, I guess. Was X the album that had “Not Enough Time”? That’s not a bad song either, I guess.

David: “Not Enough Time” was on Welcome to Wherever You Are, which was a pretty damned underrated album.

Few people loved INXS as much as I did in the ’80s, but “Suicide Blonde” just felt off to me. Every record up to that point was an expansion on the previous one, but X marked the first time that the band just tried to repeat the previous album. Loved the second single, “Disappear,” but this one feels like it’s trying too hard. I’m betting Taylor loves it, though, because her boy Dan Bejar references it in a New Pornographers song.

Zack: A while back there was a short-lived sitcom featuring Breckin Meyer called Inside Schwartz, where he played an aspiring sportscaster and the scenes were intercut with cameos from sports figures (such as Alex Karras) offering commentary on the story. I watched it with my friend Brian, who really wanted to like it, and found myself wincing each time the show’s lame jokes forced him to laugh.

In retrospect, I realize that my reaction to “Suicide Blonde” and X was very similar. I was a big INXS fan based on earlier albums like The Swing and Shabooh Shoobah, and I really wanted to like the first single from their new album, but I just couldn’t. It was terrible then, and it’s even worse now. (more…)