INXS’s Listen Like Thieves is here to steal your heart, again.
Announced today, February 13th, Listen Like Thieves celebrates its 40th anniversary with the “deluxe” treatment, featuring previously unreleased takes, a recently unearthed live recording, a special new mix and more.
Releasing on May 9th, the recording will be available as a 3CD/LP set packaged with a new 2025 mix by Giles Martin and Paul Hicks on CD and vinyl, plus extensive, previously unreleased outtakes and demos, a rare 1986 BBC recording from London’s Royal Albert Hall 1986 and a new interview with the surviving band members by celebrated UK-based journalist Paul Sexton.
The “Extended Edition” 2CD contains the new mix; the CD-2 splash has a selection of B-sides, remixes and live recordings; the 1LP “40th Anniversary Edition” vinyl contains the new 2025 mix.
INXS was at the very peak of their powers when Listen Like Thieves dropped in 1985. Produced by Chris Thomas, the collection followed Shabooh Shoobah (1982) and The Swing (1984), albums that would set-up INXS for global adoration.
Next up, 1987’s Kick, an album that, as its name suggests, smashed down the barriers and established INXS as a stadium act and chart buster on both sides of the Atlantic.
“Chris Thomas was one of the most talented and exciting producers we ever had the privilege to work with,” comments founding band member and co-songwriter Andrew Farriss.
“From the moment we met, there was no doubt he would bring a new dynamic to our music, his drive and determination helped Michael and I deliver a smash hit in ‘What You Need’. 40 years on, Giles and Paul captured the original raw energy we felt when we first recorded the album and created a sonic depth to give the record an entirely new dimension that we couldn’t be prouder of.”
Martin, INXS’ executive music producer and son of the late Beatles producer George Martin, curated the trove of session tracks, outtakes and demos, and with Hicks shaped the new stereo mix in partnership with the band.
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Released October 1985, the LP was promoted with four singles: “What You Need,” “This Time,” “Kiss the Dirt (Falling Down the Mountain),” and the title track, which was accompanied with a memorable cinematic music video, shot by longtime collaborator Richard Lowenstein.
The album peaked at No. 1 in Australia and No. 11 on the Billboard 200, logging more than a year on the chart. By 1997, the year of Hutchence’s untimely passing, the album was certified double platinum.
Formed in Perth in 1977, INXS climbed the highest mountain of rock with six U.K. top 10 albums (including a No. 1 with Welcome To Wherever You Are from 1992) and five U.S. top 20 albums, a BRIT Award (in 1991 for best international group) and, in 2001, elevation into the ARIA Hall of Fame.
Despite kicking goals with precision and consistency throughout the ‘80s and ’90s, INXS hasn’t been recognised with the music industry’s most prestigious award – induction into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame.
In October 2023, during the inaugural edition of SXSW Sydney, the surviving band members – Garry Gary Beers, Kirk Pengilly and brothers Andrew, Jon and Tim Farriss – reunited for the first time in more than six years, for the launch of Calling All Nations, a “love letter” created through stories and pictures from the group’s global fanbase, and from the artists.
Though no longer an active, touring outfit, the group’s catalogue is a diamond mine. Career streams top 4 billion and their diamond-certified 2011 release The Best Of was one of just three homegrown recordings to crack the ARIA year-end chart for 2024, dropping in at No. 81.
