Supriya Ghosh (Editor)

Need You Tonight

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Genre
  
Funk rock

Length
  
3:00

B-side
  
"I'm Coming (Home)" "Mediate" (music video)

Released
  
23 September 1987 1 June 2005 (remixes)

Format
  
7" single 12" single CD single Cassette

Label
  
Atlantic Mercury Records WEA

"Need You Tonight" is the fourth song on INXS's 1987 album Kick as well as the first single from the album released worldwide. It is the only INXS single to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also achieved their highest charting position in the United Kingdom, where the song reached number two on the UK Singles Chart; however, this peak was only reached after a re-release of the single in November 1988. On its first run on the UK Charts in October 1987, it stalled at No. 58. While it would arguably become the band's signature song, it was one of the last songs recorded for the album.

Contents

In February 2014, after the Channel 7 screening of the INXS: Never Tear Us Apart mini-series, "Need You Tonight" charted again in Australia via download sales. It peaked at No. 28 on the ARIA Singles Chart.

Background

In INXS's official autobiography, INXS: Story to Story, Andrew Farriss said that the famous riff to the song appeared suddenly in his head while waiting for a cab to go to the airport to fly to Hong Kong. He asked the cab driver to wait a couple of minutes while he grabbed something from his motel room. In fact, he went up to record the riff and came back down an hour later with a tape to a very annoyed driver.

The song is a much more electronic track than most of the band's material before or after, combining sequencers with regular drum tracks and a number of tracks of layered guitars. To approximate the sound on the recorded track, the band often utilizes click tracks for a frequent synthesizer chord as well as rim shots heard throughout the song.

On the Kick album, the song is linked to the next song, entitled either "Mediate" or "Meditate" depending on the pressing of the album. On some compilations, the two tunes appear together and on others, only "Need You Tonight" appears (rarely, if ever, has "Mediate" appeared on its own).

Music video

The music video combined live action and different kinds of animation. Directed by Richard Lowenstein, the video was actually "Need You Tonight / Mediate", as it combined two songs from the album. Lowenstein claimed that the particular visual effects in "Need You Tonight" were created by cutting up 35mm film and photocopying the individual frames, before re-layering those images over the original footage.

For "Mediate", it segues into a tribute to Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues". The members flip cue cards with words from the song; the last one displays the words "Sax Solo," at which point Kirk Pengilly starts a saxophone solo. Beneath the lyric "a special date" in the "Mediate" portion of the video, the cue card shown reads "9-8-1945" which in Australian date format is 9 August 1945, the date which the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.

The video won five MTV Video Music Awards including 1988 Video of The Year and was ranked at number twenty-one on MTV's countdown of the 100 greatest videos of all time.

Track listings

Maxi CD single

  1. "Need You Tonight" – 3:05
  2. "Don't Dream It's Over" – 4:00
  3. "Need You Tonight" (Extended version) – 6:36
  4. "Need You Tonight" (Remix) – 4:03

Rogue Traders remix

Rogue Traders covered and remixed "Need You Tonight" and released it as a single in Australia. The song was renamed "One of My Kind", where it reached No. 10 on the Australian Top 100 Singles Chart, becoming their first top-10 hit. "One of My Kind" is the second single released by the Rogue Traders for their debut album We Know What You're Up To.

The music video is set in a dance party where the lizard on the single cover wanders around looking for a girl of his kind. He finds one looking lonely. The two sit together and he sings the line 'you're one of my kind' before the video ends.

Track listings

Maxi CD single

  1. "One of My Kind" (radio edit)
  2. "One of My Kind" (club mix edit)
  3. "One of My Kind" (Phunked Remix)

12" vinyl

  1. "One of My Kind" (12" mix)
  2. "One of My Kind" (radio edit)
  3. "One of My Kind" (dub mix)

Australian CD single

  1. "One of My Kind" (Radio Edit)
  2. "One of My Kind" (Rogue Traders Club Adventure)
  3. "One of My Kind" (Swimming in blue mix)
  4. "One of My Kind" (Rogue Traders Dub)
  5. "Make It Better" (Original Mix)

Charts

The single spent 15 weeks in the charts, 9 of which were in the top 50. The single also topped the ARIA Dance chart.

Other cover versions

  • In 1998, Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers covered the song for her medley Rock The Party.
  • Canadian singer Jacynthe covered this song in 2003 for her album Seize the Day.
  • Lostprophets covered this song on The Fake Sound of Progress CD single.
  • Australian singer Gilli Moon covered this song in 2003 on her album Woman as a much slower arrangement.
  • Cassettes Won't Listen covered the song for the Guilt by Association Vol. 2 compilation, released by Engine Room Recordings in November 2008.
  • Crimpshrine has a live cover of this song on the Benecia By the Bay Compilation.
  • Rock band The Dirtbombs have performed the song live.
  • Britney Spears recorded a cover of the song for a possible inclussion on her fourth album In the Zone (2003) but finally was shelved. The song was produced by Fred Durst.
  • General Hospital's Nathan Parsons sang this song as a karaoke version at a reception on the show 29 September 2009.
  • In March 2010, UK rapper Professor Green released a song based entirely on the song called "I Need You Tonight".
  • In 2012, the actress Liv Tyler covered the song for the Givenchy's new fragance "Very Irresistible Givenchy Electric Rose".
  • Richard Cheese covered this song for his 2012 album Back in Black Tie.
  • San Francisco-based rock group Thao & The Get Down Stay Down performed a version of the song in May 2013 for The A.V. Club's A.V. Undercover series.
  • Australian singer Kylie Minogue covered the song for her 2014 Kiss Me Once Tour.
  • Reel Big Fish cover this song for Zoolander No. 2 soundtrack.
  • American singer Bonnie Raitt covered this song in 2016 for her album Dig in Deep.

    • References

    Need You Tonight Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA