Through no fault of its own, the album now stands as the original line-up’s epitaph, but it has barely aged a day. It went on to perform strongly on the charts, returning the band to the Top 20 in numerous territories and landing just outside the Top 40 of the US Billboard 200. Released on April 4, 1997, Elegantly Wasted emerged as a stylish, confident return that respected INXS’ heritage, but which also saw the Australian stalwarts looking to the future. Uptempo numbers such as “Girl On Fire” and the compelling “Everything,” however, revealed that Hutchence and company still led the pack when it came to penning rousing, radio-friendly rockers, while “Don’t Lose Your Head” and the sinewy, Kick-esque title track reassured those who were worried the band might have jettisoned their inherent funkiness in their desire to update their sound. INXS duly relished introducing some new flavors on Elegantly Wasted, discreetly embroidering “She Is Rising” and the soulful “Searching” with loops and electronica, and soaking the sparse “Building Bridges” in a filmic atmosphere redolent of Portishead’s Dummy. As Hutchence told The Album Network, “A lot of like U2, The Cure and Massive Attackseem to be cross-pollinating genres of music – this is definitely a good time to be recording music as the horizons are once again widening!” To their credit, INXS also kept their ear to the ground when it came to adapting to changing trends in a post-Britpop world. The band “wanted a record that was a commercial success,” Fairbairn told Sound On Sound, adding, “but they also wanted to go with energy and performance, concentrating on the material.” It also helped that “Michael had a great voice – he could make a little clip-on mic on your jacket sound like a million bucks.” An in-demand studio guru whose CV included work with Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Poison, and Scorpions, Fairbairn proved a good fit for INXS as both parties were keen to make a record that captured the natural energy of the band. They later moved on to Canada and then to Spain to nail Elegantly Wasted with producer Bruce Fairbairn. Nonetheless, after some necessary downtime, INXS regrouped in London to start rehearsing for their Mercury debut during the spring of 1996. Also, as Hutchence added in The Album Network interview, “Andrew, Garry and I have all had children.” Hutchence hooked up with producer/Gang Of Four guitarist Andy Gill to start work on his lone solo album during 1995, while Andrew and Tim Farriss got involved in production. It just seemed like the logical time to take a break.”ĭespite this, the band remained busy in the interim. “We have recorded an album every 12 to 18 months over the last five or six years… With the completion of, we also fulfilled our contract with Atlantic Records. “We really wanted to get off the old carousel for a while,” Hutchence told Australia’s The Album Network magazine in March 1997. “We really wanted to get off the old carousel” Divorced from the times, however, it’s a lot easier to appreciate Elegantly Wasted for what it actually was: a vibrant and purposeful return from a band who desperately needed to get off the treadmill after producing nine albums in just 13 years and touring relentlessly around the world.
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