Shabooh Shoobah by INXS

Shabooh Shoobah, INXS's third album, arrived in October 1982 and was the first record the Sydney six-piece got released all over the world. Mark Opitz produced it for WEA Australia, and most of the songs came from keyboardist Andrew Farriss and singer Michael Hutchence, the writing team that was fast becoming the band's engine. Around them stood the rest of the founding crew: Tim Farriss on guitar, Jon Farriss on drums, Garry Gary Beers on bass, and Kirk Pengilly on guitar and sax.

It's lean, twitchy new wave built for dancing and brooding at the same time, the guitars and keyboards locked hard to a rhythm section that swings more than most of the synth brigade dared. "The One Thing" is the calling card, a slinky, strutting come-on with Hutchence prowling all over it, and he was already the one you couldn't take your eyes off. "Don't Change" is the other pole, a big-hearted rush of a chorus that sounds like the band charging the horizon. "To Look at You" and "Black and White" were the other two singles.

On the ARIA Albums Chart back home it climbed as high as No. 5 and then simply refused to leave, hanging around for 94 weeks, and it made the Billboard 200 in America as well. It set up everything that came after: two years later "Original Sin" gave INXS their first Australian number one, and the international run of Listen Like Thieves and Kick was not far behind.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.