Rating: NN
Rock Star: INXS winner J.D. Fortune sounds freakishly like Michael Hutchence, which makes this album resemble a watereddown version of early INXS. Now, that sound certainly had its day – and some memorable tunes – in the 80s, but let’s face it, INXS were getting pretty crappy right before Hutchence died. Elegantly Wasted was a shit record, and I think we’re all turned off by the way they’ve gone about the whole comeback thing. This is plain old overproduced dance-rock with cookie-cutter tracks that sound like they came out of a songwriting machine, boasting titles like Hot Girls (only okay if you’re Mötley Crüe). The lyrics are just bad, and the arrangements could’ve built on an old genre to create something befitting the current musical landscape, but INXS didn’t do that. There must be a better way they could’ve done this.
