INXS

The Australian band that spent five years in Sydney pubs and then took the same songs to stadiums. INXS formed in 1977 as the Farriss Brothers, with three actual Farriss brothers — Andrew, Tim and Jon — alongside Kirk Pengilly, Garry Gary Beers and a schoolfriend of Andrew's named Michael Hutchence. They played two gigs a day in local pubs and recorded their debut between midnight and dawn. Original Sin gave them their first Australian No.1 in 1984, Listen Like Thieves broke them internationally, and Kick in 1987 produced four American Top 10 singles: Need You Tonight, Devil Inside, New Sensation and Never Tear Us Apart.

Hutchence was the reason the room looked at the stage, and Andrew Farriss wrote most of the music underneath him — a partnership that held for twenty years. The band sold more than fifty million records, won six ARIA Awards, and entered the ARIA Hall of Fame in October 2001. Their high-water mark was Wembley Stadium in July 1991, in front of 72,000 people at the end of a year on the road. Hutchence died in Sydney on November 22, 1997, at thirty-seven. INXS continued with other singers, including one chosen on television in 2005, and played their final concert in November 2012. The records that matter are the ones with Hutchence on them, and there are a lot of them.