Happy Anniversary: INXS, “New Sensation”

28 years ago today, INXS released the third single from Kick, which in turn provided them with the third consecutive top-5 single on the Billboard Hot 100.

Written by Andrew Farriss and Michael Hutchence, “New Sensation” followed in the footsteps of “Need You Tonight” and “Devil Inside” in charming American radio listeners. Indeed, the singles performed an unusual one-two-three punch: “Need You Tonight” hit #1, “Devil Inside” hit #2, and “New Sensation” hit #3.

A few years later, one of the song’s lyrics would be repurposed and utilized as the title of the band’s concert album, Live Baby Live, but “New Sensation” also provided Rolling Stone with a title for their INXS cover story, which gives you an idea just how high a profile the band had after they delivered Kick unto the world. Given how long they’d been plugging away at that point, it was a significant change in status, one which found them in a whole new world…or as Hutchence put it to Rolling Stone, “There's one thing that working in Australia a long time doesn't prepare you for, and that is what they call in America 'becoming a star.’”

Truly, Hutchence did become a star as a result of Kick, if one that ended up falling far too soon. Still, he left behind quite a musical epitaph: like virtually all of the singles from Kick, “New Sensation” continues to receive considerable airplay even now.