(Pop-Rock) [24/96] INXS - Kick [Mobile Fidelity Silver Label LP (MOFI 1-003) - 2010 (Special Limited Edition)] - 1987, FLAC (tracks+.cue)

For the first (and really only) time, INXS made a consistently solid album that had no weak moments from top to bottom. More than that, really, Kick is an impeccably crafted pop tour de force, the band succeeding at everything they try...Even without the band's sense of style, the flawless songcraft is intoxicating, and it's what makes Kick one of the best mainstream pop albums of the '80s.- Steve Huey/AMG

"The last throes of Reagan’s presidency, big hair, carefree existence, the promise of a booming economy, preppy clothes, Nintendo 8-bit gaming systems, and MTV’s seemingly limitless reign: All happy memories conjured by INXS’ Kick, on the creative level of anything Madonna, Prince, or Michael Jackson recorded at the time. More than six million copies sold, four Top 5 singles, and still, nearly 25 years later, not one feeble moment, justify the 1987 record’s status as pure pop genius.

Anchored by the sensual purr of vocalist Michael Hutchence and frisky drumming (recorded in analog) of Jon Farriss, Kick taps into a hybrid style that freshly stays away from the era’s plastic, manufactured sounds and narrow-minded, vacant aesthetic. A seamless fusion of dance beats, sleek rock riffs, soaring hooks, horn-fueled R&B, and string-laden accents, the 12-track set is an irresistibly catchy and liquidly fluid sonic miasma that contains every single element a classic contemporary pop work requires.

Above all, every song boasts a different feel and distinctive pace, characteristics that aren’t forced but natural results of the collective’s chemistry. The sexy, breathy pop-funk “Need You Tonight” clicks with interlocking arrangements and murmured vocals. The atmospheric, synth-drum-punctuated “Meditate” hallucinates with stream-of-conscious vocals and percolating grooves. Well-placed pauses, hypnotic flanged guitar passages, and so-funky-you’ll-sweat saxophone breaks pepper the liberating rock smash “New Sensation.”

INXS also kicks out upbeat dance-inflected jams on the brassy skirt-swaying title track, syncopated “Calling All Nations,” and elsewhere, but doesn’t forget the importance of a bleeding-heart ballad. Hence, the devastatingly moving “Never Tear Us Apart” the knifing strings and guitar twang proving dramatic, direct, and honest. The late 1980s produced a handful of more commercially successful pop records, but none is better than Kick.

Mastered on Mobile Fidelity’s world-renowned mastering system and pressed at RTI (America's best record plant), Silver Label numbered limited edition LP presents INXS’ studio masterpiece with the tremendous punch, transparent midrange impact, and involving depth the record has always deserved but, until now, never possessed. Textural details, Hutchence’s creamy vocals, and Farris’ diversified percussion positively explode and engage in the manner that only the best pop-rock can".