CoronaVinyl Day 245 (I): Dekadance by INXS

For an explanation of CoronaVinyl, click here.

I'm back, and so is CoronaVinyl.  Since we last spoke, I've come into some more records.  It turns out one of my neighbors used to have some sort of job related to the music industry and just has tons of records -- many of which he received as free "promotional use only" copies -- that he is finally getting rid of at his wife's behest.  One man's wife's triumph is another man's wife's discontent.

I've gained some additional albums by "I" artist, and just in time for today's CoronaVinyl category, which is "I."  One said "I" record is INXS's 1983 EP Dekadance.  It was released in the U.S. as a four-song EP, with extended versions of four songs off the band's 1982 album Shabooh Shoobah.  In the band's native Australia, a 7-song EP called Dekadance was released two years later with entirely different songs.

The songs on the album are "Black and White," "To Look At You," "The One Thing," and "Here Comes II."  The middle two are only available on vinyl or cassette on this EP and have never been released in any other format.

The songs are good, early INXS songs -- the kind of danceable pop rock that you would come to expect from the band.  Of course, INXS would go on to become international stars a couple years later -- with the Listen Like Thieves album in 1985, the massive Kick album in 1987, and X in 1990 -- though they already had some success in Australia before the rest of the world caught on.

Famously, lead singer Michael Hutchence died from suicide in 1997 (though not autoerotic asphyxiation as has been rumored).  The band continued on after Hutchence's death with several lead singers, though they never reached the same level of success as they had with Hutchence.  All in all, the band had ten Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, seven of which were Top 10 hits -- including six in a row between 1987 and 1990 -- and one of which went to #1 (1987's "Need You Tonight").  In their native Australia, the band has had 37 Top 40 hits, including ten Top 10s and one #1 (1984's "Original Sin"). 

The EP isn't available on Spotify, and I couldn't find it in its entirety on YouTube, but here's a 14-minute YouTube video that discusses both the American and Australian versions of Dekadance, as well as separate YouTube "videos" of each of the four songs on the EP.  With only four songs on the EP, I'm not going to bother picking favorites from each side.