It seems Mark Burnett found the only platoon of rock singers in this entire crazy world that can claim INXS as their God. Yet, I suppose, in and of itself that is quite a Herculean feat. Even before INXS lead vocalist Michael Hutchence — the INXS face and the INXS brand to the world — hung himself for cheap thrills (or so alleged) in 1997, until the summer of 2005, INXS had been nearly vanquished from the world scene. Or I can succinctly nail it this way: When I go into any large public venue I constantly see 13-year-old kids wearing Led Zeppelin t-shirts. I see an INXS shirt, like, never. The fact that contestants like J.D., Marty and Ty repeatedly honk the stellar undercurrents and influences of their deep INXS roots, like the Farriss brothers strummed the banjo with Robert Johnson, must be a miracle of some sort. I'll bet the Aussie toddler-troupe The Wiggles could outdraw INXS (or whatever this is, without Hutchence) right here, right now.

By David W. Taylor (Email Me)
Reality Reel Media
08.26.05

Watching Rock Star: INXS is like watching a really bad movie — or some vulgar sub-Brechtian scene — that drones-on in its impulsive weirdness (despite one's prayers for a theater fire) and ultimately becomes an incomprehensible muddle of scripted narcissism and agog impertinence. The lone evidence needed to plug this skunk right between the chops is each time one of the shaded Farriss clan or Beers or Kirk Pengilly asks a contestant: "How do you feel singing INXS songs?"

Besides this being a game show, in a sense, with the winning vocalist getting some speck of recognition, no matter how slight or how fleeting, I wonder — preparing to concede the fact that, despite INXS' rock lifestyle woes and their receding years, that all the band members possess an average intelligence — what would these gas-bagging musicians think the Pavlovian lapdog-like response would be to this question? Uh: "Oh geez, it's OK. But I'd rather be singing Beck?" And if it's nothing more than a come-on for the next INXS ass-kissing marketing blitz from a poor slob about to get the axe... well, INXS might as well be selling timeshares out of the back of their tour bus.

And if Rock Star: INXS is nothing else it is merely, unequivocally, a wretched exercise in television marketing. Mark Burnett is standing outside the trunk of his Benz trying to unload a crate called INXS. Watching this micro-scripted "Reality Show" gaucherie... you would think INXS got off the Pan Am plane from London to New York in 1964, had a press conference, and then went on the Ed Sullivan show and shook their mop-tops and changed the world. Marty says INXS "created... dance-rock... in the late 80s' and it's coming around back now with The Killers and Franz Ferdinand and bands like that." Huh? And, "I want to let people know that they created this genre." Genre?! The dance-rock genre? When in the hell did that get made up? Wednesday night?