I'm not the most "snobby" music fan out there, but I'm far from the least exclusive I've ever met. That being prefaced, I'll say it took me some time to consider INXS more than a standard FM radio place setting from my childhood. I kind of looked down on them. There was no thought process inspired about them, at all.

It started to change after a chance occurrence over at my dad's house, back when he was here in town with me. Dad was actually talking on his phone for work for a good while after I arrived, so I was hanging out in the living room, where my stepmom was preparing to do a full cleaning. But she needed music first.

The song she put on was "Need You Tonight" by INXS. I chuckled a moment. Then I realized: this was a song from her day, not just a radio air filler. She chose this song because it had value to her. As my stepmom got to her vacuuming, I really listened to the song.

I knew the song's main guitar riff. But given this slight license to pay attention, I really began to imagine the building of the song, appreciate the originality of the sound, the satisfying oddness of that guitar riff. I allowed myself to enjoy the breathiness and melody in the vocals, almost a new take on the Jim Morrison attitude, this lyrical hedonism.

What kind of madmen write a song like this?

I left my dad's house, maybe not a fan of all things INXS, but surely impressed by the peaks of their work. To dream a new sound and deliver it, to have it be so successful... to see your children, alone, on their own merits, flourish.