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Album dossier / 1987

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INXS · Rock/Pop

INXS's sixth album, and their second with producer Chris Thomas, was recorded at Rhinoceros Studios in Sydney -- co-owned by engineer David Nicholas, who had worked with the band since 1982's Shabooh Shoobah -- before final production moved to Studio de la Grande Armee in Paris and mixing wrapped at AIR Studios London with Bob Clearmountain. The "Never Tear Us Apart" demo arrived as a straightforward Fats Domino-style blues shuffle; Thomas recalled hearing it and deciding to substitute strings for the piano part, a swap he said "changed everything." Atlantic Records' US executives initially rejected the finished album outright, feeling its funk and dance leanings would alienate rock radio and offering the band $1 million to remake it; manager Chris Murphy instead engineered a secret college-radio push for "Need You Tonight" that built the album into a six-times-platinum, multi-format breakthrough that turned INXS into a mainstream headline act.