INXS's Hottest 100 win: How worlds collided for Never Tear Us Apart

Australia Broadcast Center

3 days ago

An uncharacteristic ballad from one of Australia's biggest, best-selling rock bands, INXS's 'Never Tear Us Apart' long ago transcended its origins to become a bona fide anthem.
But is it the best Australian song of all time? Yes, according to the 2.65 million votes in the Hottest 100 of Australian Songs.
The nation has spoken, and the 1987 single has been crowned the people's favourite, surpassing classics by Hilltop Hoods, Missy Higgins, Crowded House, Cold Chisel and many more in the special edition of triple j's national music poll.
INXS, a beloved global sensation with more than 70 million records and 4 billion streams to their name, were always going to be a frontrunner in the countdown.
The group's greatest hits compilation, The Very Best, is currently number two on the ARIA Australian Album Charts, and it's held a spot in the Top 20 for a whopping 12 years.
Formed in 1977, INXS toured relentlessly, sculpted by Sydney's pub rock scene. They grew into an excellent singles band who, beginning with 1983's Nile Rodgers-produced 'Original Sin', began competing — then dominating — on an international level.
Fronted by the enigmatic Michael Hutchence, INXS reached their commercial and creative peak with breakthrough sixth album, Kick. Released 19 October 1987, Kick was a blockbuster that cemented the six-piece in the coveted American market, despite the band's label initially hating the record.
Atlantic Records didn't grasp the sleek fusion of pop, rock and funk, fearing Kick would alienate rock radio and fail to compete with that year's chartbusters: Michael Jackson's Bad, U2's The Joshua Tree, and hair metallers Guns N' Roses, Def Leppard and Whitesnake.
Long-time INXS manager Chris Murphy said Atlantic offered him a million dollars to re-record the album. He rejected and his and the band's instincts were vindicated.
Kick peaked at #3 on the US Billboard 200 (behind George Michael's Faith and the Dirty Dancing soundtrack) and reached #2 in Australia (kept from the top spot by Icehouse's Man of Colours). Its success extended to being the best-selling album in Australia of 1988, eventually going seven times Platinum at home.
In America, it shifted a staggering six million units (six times Platinum) and produced four top 10 hits: 'New Sensation', 'Devil Inside', 'Need You Tonight' (the band's first and only US number one, and #59 in the Hottest 100 of Australian Songs), and 'Never Tear Us Apart'.
Courtney Barnett was one of several Australian musicians who voted for 'Never Tear Us Apart' in the Hottest 100 of Australian songs, alongside G Flip, Rüfüs Du Sol, and The Veronicas. Kick came out the year she was born.
"I was obsessed with the whole album," says Barnett, who covered Kick in its entirety in late 2012, for Melbourne-based Pure Pop Records, with naught but voice and guitar.
"So many great songs, but I think ['Never Tear Us Apart'] is so epic and dramatic and a great love song. I think that makes it feel really timeless."
Among Kick's muscular grooves and arena-ready sing-alongs, 'Never Tear Us Apart' is the power ballad, with the emphasis on power. But it began life as an even stranger outlier in the band's catalogue: a swaggering, up-tempo number in the vein of old-fashioned rockabilly sensation Gene Vincent.
"I wanted to do something that was very different from what we were doing before," keyboardist-guitarist and songwriter Andrew Farriss said in a 2024 'Behind The Scenes' video.
"In fact, when Michael first heard what I was doing, he laughed … I don't think he took it all that seriously." But the frontman took Farriss's cassette demo and grew to love what he was hearing.
In a break between touring and back in Australia, "he came around to my little apartment," says Farriss, who had transposed the music to piano. "[Michael] put the lyrics on it [and] worked out the melody, which I think is fantastic; the way it's really understated."
Even so, when the band got into the studio to record Kick, Farriss was still unsure if the ballad was going to make the cut. British producer Chris Murphy was adamant it had to be on the record, remembers Farriss.
"But I think he was uncomfortable with an electric or acoustic guitar, or even piano, playing like that… He said, 'have you got a string sample or something?'."
Farriss did: the Emulator II Marcato strings, a keyboard preset made ubiquitous in the 1980s via songs by Madonna, The Smiths, The Cure and more.
Hutchence was already an iconic 1980s sex symbol, but 'Never Tear Us Apart' works so well because he plays to his tender side. He isn't the smouldering rock star, he's the wounded lover, bringing necessary levels of drama in a career-best vocal performance.
This is a man you believe could make wine from your tears. And he conveys that sense of tortured romance — the melancholy, and the triumph — in just two short verses and a chorus.
"He had the ability to say a lot in a very short space of time," says Farriss. "And I think that communication is evident in 'Never Tear Us Apart'. It goes straight to people's hearts. They want to own it."
Ambling at a steady 97 beats per minute in the uber-common key of C Major, 'Never Tear Us Apart' is in the waltz-like time signature of 6/8, which enhances one of its key features: The dramatic silences.
The first (at 48 seconds) leads to the twangy, Spaghetti Western guitar break into the second verse. The second (at 1:49) was used to theatrical effect in concert, where lead guitarist and elder Farriss brother, Tim, would stretch out the silence to whip crowds into a frenzied anticipation.
"He stops it for as long as he likes," Hutchence deadpanned in a 1987 interview. "We can go have drinks and sit down for a while."
This second break leads into another of the song's distinguishing elements: Kirk Pengilly's saxophone solo. Blustering, borderline-erotic, instantly hummable — it lasts only five bars but provides an added climax to the song.
Live, Pengilly would often "wander off into the audience and find a spot to do the sax solo," Hutchence recalled. "And we never see him again."
Hutchence experienced plenty of high-profile romances in his life, including Kylie Minogue, Danish supermodel Helena Christensen, and TV presenter/wife of Live Aid organiser Bob Geldof, Paula Yates, among them.
But the lyrical inspiration for 'Never Tear Us Apart' was actually Michele Bennett, his pre-fame girlfriend who — even after splitting in 1987 — remained Hutchence's dear friend and confidante during the height of his fame.
She also introduced Hutchence to filmmaker Richard Lowenstein, who cast the frontman in his 1986 cult classic Dogs In Space and became a long-time INXS collaborator, directing 15 of their music videos.
That included 'Never Tear Us Apart', shot in Prague during winter, a universe removed from the sunny beaches of Sydney, using the Czechoslovakian capital's architecture and landmarks as a romantic backdrop to their tear-jerker.
"That was shot in the old town centre, it's so beautiful there," Hutchence remarked in a behind the scenes video commemorating the song's 35th anniversary. "One thing about communism is it's kept most of the buildings intact. It's like a medieval city."
At the 1989 ARIA Music Awards, 'Never Tear Us Apart' won INXS Best Group and Best Video, and was a staple of MTV overseas, amplifying Michael Hutchence's magnetic star power.
"He was a cross between Mick Jagger and Jim Morrison," MTV video jockey Alan Hunter told Billboard.
Famously, Hutchence's career was tragically cut short. He died by suicide in 1997, at age 37, at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Sydney's Double Bay while his INXS bandmates were in rehearsals for another tour.
The last person to speak to Hutchence alive? His old flame, Michele Bennett, who received a distressing phone call from the troubled frontman and unsuccessfully attempted to meet him at his hotel room. There was no response, so she left a note with reception.
Hutchence's body was discovered by a hotel maid the next morning.
An accomplished film and TV producer (whose credits include 2000 hit Chopper and music videos for U2, Prince, Silverchair and Foo Fighters), Bennett didn't speak publicly about Hutchence's death until 2019 documentary Mystify, directed by mutual friend Lowenstein.
The filmmaker often felt that if Hutchence were to ever settle down, it would have been with Bennett. "I always felt that, after everything, he'd go back and marry Michele and have a baby with her," Lowenstein told The Independent in 1998.
The only INXS song played at Hutchence's funeral, as his casket was carried out of St. Andrew's Cathedral, was 'Never Tear Us Apart', its already emotive words forever given added weight and bittersweet resonance.
When triple j's Hottest 100 first shifted to an annual format in 1993, INXS's commercial dominance was beginning to wane, struggling to detach themselves from the 80s, the era that made them icons.
As such, INXS have never previously appeared in the annual poll. Some voters in the Hottest 100 of Australian songs may have been aware of this fact, wanting to vindicate one of Australia's all-timers in our country's most famous music poll (similar to The Veronicas anthem 'Untouched', reaching #3, marking their Hottest 100 debut).
Then again, the majority of voters probably had no idea INXS have never made the Hottest 100 before.
The biggest voting demographic for 'Never Tear Us Apart' were people aged 18 — 29 (42 per cent of the song's vote), but the track's popularity across all age groups is what rocketed it to the top.
Where most other songs were only popular with a single demographic, 'Never Tear Us Apart' had cross generational appeal. It had a higher-than-average vote in ballots from people of all ages.
For example, it's the only song to feature in the top five of both men under 30 and the #1 song choice for women aged 46 — 55. Mothers and sons love INXS!
So, how did a song approaching its 40th anniversary resonate so broadly with people of all ages? Cultural impact and longevity.
INXS's catalogue has been a go-to soundtrack choice in plenty of film and TV moments over four decades, from Law & Order SVU and One Tree Hill to the 2004 director's cut of cult indie hit Donnie Darko.
Most significantly, INXS served as an important story thread in HBO series Euphoria, exploring the 1980s-era adolescence of Cal Jacobs (played by Eric Dane) and his best friend Derek (Henry Eikenberry) in season two.
Specifically, 'Never Tear Us Apart' is used in full in a cold open where the pair's friendship blossoms into a queer romantic exploration, a moment that leans into the tender, feminine side Michael Hutchence expressed in the song.
Music supervisor Jen Malone used INXS as her "jumping-off point" to soundtrack these flashback sequences and introduced younger audiences to legacy artists.
The five INXS songs used across Euphoria season two enjoyed a resurgence as the show's young audience discovered, and embraced, their music. Spotify streams of 'Never Tear Us Apart' enjoyed a 22 per cent boost in the month following the series finale.
"I think that Euphoria is an element of music discovery," she told Variety in 2022. "And to be able to introduce some of the Gen Z audience to this amazing music is so exciting.
More recently, 'Never Tear Us Apart' was featured in the A24 erotic thriller, Babygirl, thanks to INXS fan Nicole Kidman.
The song scores a particularly steamy montage between Kidman's powerful CEO Romy and young intern Samuel (Harry Dickinson) in the office. When director Halina Reijn used it early in production, she knew no other song would better suit the scene.
"I call A24 and I'm like, 'We need the rights to this song.'," Reijn told the Reel Blend podcast in 2024. "[A24] tried it but it was a hard no [from INXS' people]. I didn't sleep for a week. I tried every other song but nothing worked.
As is typically the case with any enduring Aussie anthem, 'Never Tear Us Apart' also has a strong sports connection. Just ask any Port Adelaide fan — it's been the club's unofficial anthem for more than a decade.
Pears supporters regularly hold club scarves, emblazoned with the track name, high above their heads as the song rings out across Adelaide Oval; a pre-game tradition that began in 2014 when the team moved its home ground from Alberton Park to Adelaide Oval.
When the idea was first pitched, "I was quite overwhelmed," Andrew Farriss told ABC Overnights in 2024. "What really struck me, firstly, there's no one performing on the oval, it's the audience endearing themselves to [the] song… and it's gone into Australian culture. That part hit me quite hard…"
The song continues to resonate with audiences new and old alike, and it's been covered countless times by artists from across the musical spectrum.
Tom Jones and Natalie Imbruglia performed it as a duet in 1999. English DJ Tall Paul delivered a thumping remix, titled 'Precious Heart', in 2001. The National recorded a rendition for an Australian bushfire fundraising compilation in 2020.
Closer to home, both Allday and True Live covered 'Never Tear Us Apart' for triple j's Like A Version. Dua Lipa — whose hit 'Break My Heart' interpolated INXS's 'Need You Tonight' – performed the song during the Sydney leg of her Australian tour earlier this year.
First nations pop sensation The Kid LAROI covered the song at the 2024 NRL Grand Final, surprising the crowd and his own mother.
Reflecting on LAROI's performance, Farriss told ABC Overnights: "One of the most endearing and surprising things of all is that we, INXS, I don't think any of us really imagined that 30 or something years later, we'd even be relevant.
"It just amazes me still, after all these years, that especially the younger generation of people embrace what INXS did at the time."
"Only the band members would ever know what it's like to be INXS," Jon Farriss told triple j. "Being on stage, being the only people to actually see what it looks like with all the people's reactions and how beautiful it is."
But that perspective was so treasured precisely because of the band's audience, across time and around the world.
"Over the years, the songs do take on their own sort of energy and power, which is really bequeathed from the audience, and it's out of our hands. Once we design and record it, it's sort of takes it and the people choose to do what they want with it."
'Never Tear Us Apart' is a song that has truly stood the test of time, a testament to a band at the peak of their powers, and the seemingly ageless appeal of their charismatic frontman.
"Michael would be so proud of how much longevity some of the songs we wrote together have really had," Andrew Farriss told ABC in 2024. "I can't believe it."
Farriss fondly remembers the "person that I met in high school when we were teenagers. That's the person I often think about. It's not the uber-famous megastar" who earned the respect and admiration of peers like Tom Jones, Mick Jagger and Bono. "I don't think of it like that."
'He's not here… to enjoy a lot of the flow-on, as years have gone on, and I miss him.'
Farriss is right. There are millions of memories embedded in just three minutes of music.
And you only need scour the comments section of any INXS content to see innumerable fans sharing fuzzy tales of the tune scoring deeply personal moments of triumph and tragedy alike, late-night pub sing-alongs and private revelries.
The same could be said for many of the iconic songs in the Hottest 100 of Australian Songs.
Just ask anyone that went through the punishing task of culling their shortlists down to just 10 tunes from across Australian music history — and there's literally tens of thousands of Hottest 100 voters you could quiz.
Ultimately, the main takeaway from that difficult task is that it wasn't really about competition, it was about revisiting — and celebrating — the vast scope, scale, and quality of music this county has produced. It's about realising 'how bloody great is Australian music!?'
INXS sit atop the countdown, but all 100 songs — and many more that didn't make the cut — contain countless memories, milestones, and meaning. And nobody could never, ever tear that apart.