As INXS’s classic album Listen Like Thieves turns 40, the Australian new wave legends are handing out the gifts.

Announced today, February 13th, Listen Like Thieves enjoys the deluxe edition 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 stole hearts 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.

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“We decided to write the album in a rehearsal situation, everybody had ideas in their heads but not many of the songs were written before we rehearsed, and we wrote one song in the studio,” remarked Michael Hutchence, the band’s late, legendary frontman, on Listen Like Thieves.

“It wasn’t the kind of album where you put tracks down bit by bit,” he continued. “We’ve done the album like a live show and what is there is there. We want to present this record as a band – the idea of six people playing together and using traditional sounds.”

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.

Preorder Listen Like Thieves here.

Listen Like Thieves (40th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)

Track list

3CD/1LP

LP + CD1: Listen Like Thieves (2025 Mix by Giles Martin and Paul Hicks)

  1. What You Need
  2. Listen Like Thieves
  3. Kiss The Dirt (Falling Down The Mountain)
  4. Shine Like It Does
  5. Good + Bad Times
  6. Biting Bullets
  7. This Time
  8. Three Sisters
  9. Same Direction
  10. One x One
  11. Red Red Sun

CD2: Demos & Outtakes

  1. “We’re rolling, it’s 1985” – Studio Chat
  2. Funk Song #11 – Take 2 (Working Title of What You Need)
  3. “Press the blue and red button” – Studio Chat
  4. Kiss The Dirt – Demo
  5. Listen Like Thieves Track Commentary
  1. Listen Like Thieves – Demo
  2. Listen Like Thieves Radio Intro
  3. One X One – Demo
  4. This Time – Demo
  5. Shine Like It Does – Demo
  6. Good and Bad Times – Alternate Take
  7. Red Red Sun – Rehearsal Fragment
  8. Red Red Sun – Alternate Outtake
  9. Same Direction Track Commentary
  10. Funk Song #9 (Working Title of Same Direction) – Studio Demo
  11. What You Need – ‘Calvin Bell’ Home Demo
  12. Shine Like It Does – Home Demo
  13. Listen Like Thieves – Home Demo
  14. Kiss the Dirt – ‘Calvin Bell’ Home Demo

CD3: Live From Royal Albert Hall

Live in London, UK – June 24, 1986

  1. Intro
  2. Same Direction
  3. Soul Mistake
  4. Kiss The Dirt (Falling Down The Mountain)
  5. Biting Bullets
  6. Burn For You
  7. Do Wot You Do
  8. Original Sin
  9. Different World
  10. Shine Like It Does
  11. Listen Like Thieves
  12. One x One
  13. What You Need
  14. Red Red Sun

2CD

CD1: Listen Like Thieves (2025 Mix by Giles Martin and Paul Hicks)

  1. What You Need
  2. Listen Like Thieves
  3. Kiss The Dirt (Falling Down The Mountain)
  4. Shine Like It Does
  5. Good + Bad Times
  6. Biting Bullets
  7. This Time
  8. Three Sisters (instrumental)
  9. Same Direction
  10. One x One
  11. Red Red Sun

CD2: B-Sides, Remixes & Live Recordings

  1. Listen Like Thieves (Extended Remix)
  2. Begotten
  3. What You Need (Nick Launay Remix)
  4. I’m Over You
  5. Sweet As Sin
  6. Six Knots
  7. Listen Like Thieves (Instrumental Remix)
  8. Same Direction (Live)*
  9. Kiss The Dirt (Falling Down the Mountain) (Live)*
  10. Biting Bullets (Live)*
  11. Shine Like it Does (Live)*
  12. Listen Like Thieves (Live)*
  13. One X One (Live)*
  14. What You Need (Live)*
  15. Red Red Sun (Live)*
  16. Red Red Sun (Live)*

*Previously Unreleased

1LP

Side A

  1. What You Need
  2. Listen Like Thieves
  3. Kiss The Dirt (Falling Down The Mountain)
  4. Shine Like It Does
  5. Good + Bad Times

Side B

  1. Biting Bullets
  2. This Time
  3. Three Sisters
  4. Same Direction
  5. One x One
  6. Red Red Sun

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