INXS
Original Sin
(Petrol Electric/Sony Music)

A simple question: what the hell was wrong with 1994's The Greatest Hits? Its 20 tracks represented everything that was great about INXS, one of the most popular Australian acts of all time: pomp, excess, bombast, and above all, both musical and songwriting ability. Sure, there was 2002's The Best Of INXS; was essentially the same product with a reordered tracklist and an tacked on remix. Both of these compilations ticked all the boxes: fans got to hear their favourite songs, band get paid royalties forevermore. Everyone's happy. Even if the band does see fit to reform down the track, and star in a reality TV show to find a replacement for their long-dead lead singer, at least they'll never fuck with the classics, right? We could rest easy in the knowledge that although INXS might tour their back catalogue until they die, they'll never re-record their best work in attempt to capture a young audience. Right?

Wrong. So fucking wrong.

Everything about this album is abhorrent. Even if the songs came close to doing justice to the originals - and to be crystal-clear, they don't - there's just no sugarcoating this bald-faced cash-grab. The band have described it as a tribute album. This is a lie. It is the musical equivalent of pissing on one's own (or Michael Hutchence's) grave. A revolving door of guest vocalists results in an assembly-line mentality, thus no performer here is given the chance to connect with the listener. The decision to enlist the smoky vocals of trip-hop star Tricky for 'Meditate' is one of few inspired decisions; if only he was given a darker environment in which to work his magic, instead of the shimmering, neon-glow that surrounds his urgent rhymes. When the band pause the song for a few bars to introduce their high-voltage instruments, you can just envisage the cheesy, sunglass-clad grins that were passed around the recording studio. James Ash of The Rogue Traders produces the album alongside INXS drummer Jon Farriss, and he's as much to blame as any of the band members for the incessant aural dullness contained within. The worst offender is title track 'Original Sin', which they totally fuck up by reinterpreting it as a dancefloor banger sung by Rob Thomas and an unknown foreigner named DJ Yaleidy. It sounds like failure.

Dan Sultan lends his award-winning pipes to a tempo-shifted 'Just Keep Walking', and it almost works. Ben Harper emotes all over 'Never Tear Us Apart' alongside French singer Mylène Farmer, and it's not terrible. Kav Temperley of Eskimo Joe steps up to the plate for 'To Look At You' and does his best to capture a moment, a mood - anything - amid yet another boring 4/4 dance beat. Yawn. The only touching moment of the collection is 'Don't Change', which, in stark contrast to the rest of the album, is treated with some dignity. Credited to keyboardist Andrew Farriss and saxophonist/guitarist Kirk Pengilly, this stripped-back version eschews the soaring electric guitars and cavernous vocal reverb of the original, in favour of acoustic guitars, a choral accompaniment, and a softly-sung vocal duet. It is modest, pretty, reverential, and circumspect. In short, it's everything that this album is not. Jon Farriss' album opener, 'Drum Opera', is so insipid as to inspire nausea. Fittingly, it sets the tone for what's to come.

Original Sin should be avoided at all costs. It can't be recommended for musical value, nor comedy. It deserves no stars, and further suggests that the band's only one has been buried for more than a decade.

Andrew McMillen

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INXS - 'Don't Change' live on Sunrise Dec 2010