While alphabetically arranging Australian albums earlier this week, I discovered ancient tapes by two I bands (Icehouse's Primitive Man and INXS's ) that I don't recall ever owning and know haven't touched a tape deck in 25 years. I decided to do an impromptu play off to determine which album has aged better.
Both Primitive Man and Shabooh Shoobah came out in late 1982, during my senior year of High School when I could buy pirated cassettes for one dollar each, and would buy literally anything that looked interesting. The INXS album had two big hits ("Don't Change" and "The One Thing") sandwiched between eight forgettable filler tracks. It sounds very "80s" and not in a good way. The Icehouse album had one hit ("Hey Little Girl") and a bunch of similar sounding songs which sound just as dated, but in a more interesting way.
Apparently for this album, "Icehouse" was just one guy, songwriter Iva Davies, and Primitive Man sounds like the work of a single auteur. Maybe not the best album ever made, but it's aged better than INXS. Wouldn't it have made more sense to pronounce their name "eye-enn-ex-ess" instead of "in excess"? Or even "inks"?
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