Review: INXS – Suicide Blonde (Rock)

This review covers the pop rock track INXS – Suicide Blonde.

This track was released in 1990 on the album X.

The track starts with a brief harmonica solo. From there, the rock guitars and drum kit come in and build the track up. Before the lyrics kick in, the harmonica makes a brief return. Meanwhile, the vocals themselves hit a sort of chorus right away. The vocals themselves have a very delayed effect.

From there, the track hits a more full main chorus. This is capped off with more harmonica. After that, the track goes into the next verse. This seems to be short a the track then goes straight into another main chorus. This is capped off with a sudden stop in the music before the vocals bring the track back.

At this point, the track then goes straight into another main chorus where you would expect a verse. This main chorus repeats as the track fades out.

For me, this track has a few issues. The first issue is the effect placed on the vocals. I have no problem with a delay effect on the vocals. Such effects can have an interesting effect on many different sounds including vocals. The inherent risk with a delay effect on vocals is that the effect muddies the sound. In fact, it can easily make the vocals unintelligible where the vocals would otherwise be crisp and clear. This effect can be exacerbated by several other sounds happening such as a guitar, synth, or pretty much anything else that can occupy some sound in the mid range frequencies.

In this track, the delay effect when the vocals have little else going on at the same time actually sounds pretty decent. There may be the odd lyric that gets lost here and there, but the effect is minor. Unfortunately, when there are other sounds happening, the effect stays there. In this case, when other instruments are at play, the lyrics become very hard to understand at times. If this effect was softened, then there wouldn’t be as much of a problem, but it never changes. So, the vocals become an unintelligible mess at times.

Another problem with this track is the fact that there is very little verse works. I could only count one solid verse in this track towards the beginning. After that, the verses wind up being instrumental sections as the vocals merely repeat the chorus over and over again. In a rock track, this makes the track sound like a one trick pony. As a result, the life span of the track will get shortened.

What I will say about this track is that the guitar work is actually pretty good. The more acoustic guitar, although it has a repetitive riff, it still manages to work quite well. This is because of the other sounds going on. While it is almost reduced down to the status of an effect, the effect is quite nice to hear.

Another positive is the fact that there is some decent variety in the instruments themselves. Even the full stop part way through actually works in this tracks favour because it gives the track a nice varied flow.

Generally speaking, this track has its positives and negatives. On the positive side of things, the instruments are used in such a way to give the track a nice variety throughout. The downside is that the vocals have a delay effect that sometimes make the vocals unintelligible at times. This depends on what is going on besides the vocals, but it can be pretty messy. In the end, this is an alright track. It’s not amazing, but it’s also not bad either.

Score
7/10

Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Google+.

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