INXS - and Australian New Wave 1979 - 1981

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I know many people have mixed opinions about INXS and their MTV-arena rock driven music, but what about their very early years, particulary 1980 to 1982, when they released a series of great New Wave pop singles and recorded three albums.

Just before posting this thread, I started singing 'Just Keep Walking' (their first hit) to myself and it occured to me that this song is nearly a lost classic (since INXS were an international success story, I'm sure most of their fans would have knowledge the song). It not only has the snotty youthful attitude of punk, but also has elements of funk. The video clip for the song is very basic, but no less engaging!

INXS made a good start in 1980! But it seemed a lot of Australian New Wavers were emerging with handful of goods in the late 70s and early 80s. Over the years, I've purchased a selection of singles and LPs by the Models, Australian Crawl, James Frued, Jo Jo Zep & Falcons, the Sports, Mondo Rock, Mental As Anything, Sunnyboys, Mi-Sex, the Flowers (known as Icehouse), the Reels, the Numbers, the Dugites (last two signed to DELUX, same label as INXS in 1980) and many more.

Many of these singles are up to international standard and should have been bigger hits, although a few of these groups did make a name of themselves on an international level at some point.

I don't know what was going on in Australia in 1980 (besides CountDown, a show every Aussie band wanted to appear on), but there seemed to be a lot of creative sparks flying during that time!