INXS

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    When Aussie Rock Went To Japan: INXS, Crowded House And The Music Videos That Captured A “Different” World

    In the 1980s, Japan offered international musicians something increasingly valuable: a visual world that audiences elsewhere could recognise as modern, mysterious and unmistakably different. For Aussie bands trying to establish themselves internationally, Japan was more than a place to tour or sell records. Its streets, temples, neon-lit cities and distinctive popular culture offered material for music videos that could make a familiar song look like something entirely new. Few examples illustrate this better than INXS, whose early-1980s videos used Japanese locations in strikingly different ways. A few years later, Crowded House would also bring a camera to Tokyo, producing a video whose location is still identifiable today. These productions reveal…

  • How Molly Meldrum Almost Created A Japanese Juggernaut

    Ian “Molly” Meldrum, one of Australia’s most prominent figures in the popular music world, came within a whisker in 1984 of making a then rising Japanese band reach superstardom while using Down Under as a launching pad to hit the top. Sandii and the Sunsetz had become only the second-ever Japanese act to reach the Top 10 in Australia with their 1983 hit, Sticky Music, but they were about to get kicked out of the country in disgrace. Meldrum, probably one of the world’s best-known rock journalists despite being notorious for poor elocution, stepped in and asked for help on behalf of the band, whose members had overstayed their visas…

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    Sending a Message

    Alright, I hadn’t known this before, but when I arrived in Japan in the mid-1980s, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I stayed in Bunkyo-ku, not far from Gokokuji Temple. Unbeknown to me at the time, and not until today, in fact, right around the same time, Australia’s biggest band, and then one of the hottest acts globally, INXS, had also filmed the music video for their hit, I Send a Message, at the same temple. I’d come to Japan with few expectations, but among the images I had were those from a couple of INXS videos from around the time. I had no idea that it had been so close. Gokokuji…