Along with more ephemeral acts like Jesus Jones and EMF, INXS inadvertently sowed the seeds for 2005’s dance-rock explosion years ago when it first occurred to sex-bomb singer Michael Hutchence and his mates to layer rock guitars and guttural moans atop post-disco dance beats. Their newly acquired relevance might have enabled INXS to get some mileage out of a reunion this year if Hutchence, in all ways the band’s focal point, hadn’t died in 1997. So instead, the surviving members submitted themselves to the televised machinations of Survivor creator Mark Burnett, who made them the center of an American Idol–like contest in which US TV watchers would see the band select Hutchence’s successor from a group of hairsprayed hopefuls. They appropriately chose J.D. Fortune, a moody, dark-haired guy who looks as if he’d rather be in the Bravery. Switch, the first INXS album since ’97’s Elegantly Wasted, sounds as contrived as Burnett’s game show, without even the backbiting reality-show bullshit; all you get are clumsy pre-fab grooves about hot girls and perfect strangers and how it ain’t pretty when the pretty leaves you. No joke, guys.
