After breaking into the States with 1982’s Shabooh Shoobah and touring with Adam Ant, INXS adjusted on The Swing in 1984. It opens with the single “Original Sin” — which only reached #58 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 — establishing that they were the same band but definitely had more money and the intention to make bigger hits. Its smooth but far poppier sound contrasted with everything they’d previously put out and is somewhat jarring when juxtaposed with the understated, cohesive sound of the prior album.

It’s on this album that the tension between early INXS and what the band would become is most evident. The authoritative title track is followed by the more sedate “Johnson’s Aeroplane” and “Love Is (What I Say)” — both quite polished but still more in line with their earlier albums. But despite this tension, it is some of their best work.

On “Dancing On The Jetty,” they do Midnight Oil better than Midnight Oil: lyrics about the world arguing, a video of a performance shot among ruins interspersed with footage of protests, police violence, and pain, packed into a song with aggressive verses and an addictively melodic chorus. The aforementioned “Love Is (What I Say)” is restrained in a way the band wouldn’t be again until the ’90s.