If any Aussie rockers are looking for a profile boost and added back catalogue sales to boot, they can always learn a few tips from the INXS model.
Following the screening and ratings success of the Never Tear Us Apart two-part telemovie in February, INXS is currently enjoying a major revival not only in the hearts and minds of the greater Australian public, but also their wallets, as the band achieves chart successes it hasn’t experienced in decades.
Sales of INXS albums this week reveals that not only have INXS broken their previous previous chart-topping record, but they are currently the biggest selling Australian act of 2014, the news arriving as the two-part series chronicling the rise of the band and the death of Michael Hutchence is released on DVD.
The band have shifted more than 340,000 albums and singles since Never Tear Us Apart: The INXS Story aired and consequently placed eight INXS releases back into the Australian charts. Since then they’ve racked up an estimated 190,000 in album sales, 150,000 individual track sales, as well as Platinum sales of their Live Baby Live concert DVD.
The bulk of those album units belongs to INXS’s The Very Best, which this week returns to the #1 position on the ARIA Albums Charts. That makes it the sixth non-consecutive week the best-of compilation has topped the charts, beating the five weeks that their 1984 album The Swing enjoyed at #1 through April and May in 1984. INXS are currently the biggest selling Australian act of 2014…
The now Triple-Platinum selling compilation also helped make INXS the first Aussie band to have both the #1 and #2 position on the album charts last month, while The Very Best is also the band’s first #1 placement since X, the band’s seventh album, was released in 1990, and as ARIA reports show, kept new releases like metal jokers Steel Panther and the ‘lost’ Johnny Cash record, Out Among The Stars, from the pole position.
INXS also stave off strong sales contenders like the Oscar-winning Frozen soundtrack, dubstep domo Skrillex, and Pharrell Williams’ new solo album G I R L (as its Oscar-nominated single ‘Happy’ enjoys its 12th week at #1 on the Singles Chart).
INXS manager Chris ‘CM’ Murphy isn’t planning on letting the INXS sales momentum slow down, looking to capitalise on the renewed interest in the historic Aussie rockers with a five-year business plan.
Murphy, who also served as co-executive producer on Never Tear Us Apart and is a prominent character in the biopic (played by actor Damon Herriman), has tentative plans for a full length film, a feature documentary, and even a Broadway musical in the works based off the reception of Never Tear Us Apart to help restore Michael Hutchence’s cultural (and financial) legacy.
To further capitalise on the INXS brand, the man who helped bring the group international attention is apparently looking at launching a talent search for “another INXS,” according to News Ltd. Considering that INXS’s reputation was basically tarnished thanks to the search for a new frontman via a reality TV series to replace Hutchence to begin with, it seems that maybe it’s not quite a case of ‘lesson learned’.
