Before Terrence Trent D’Arby was a poor replacement for Michael Hutchence in INXS, he was an arrogant bastard who made a bloody brilliant record. Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D’Arby was a soulfull sexy record in a time when Kylie was doing the Locomotion and John Farnham was taking the Pressure Down. The first song on the album “If you all get to Heaven” started off quietly with the title as the lyrics, then forcefully entered your domain with the rousing

The Hardline“Say a prayer for my mother
Say a prayer for my father
Say a prayer for my brother
But most of all please say a prayer for me”

At age 12, when my parents weren’t home I would turn the stereo to 11, sing the quiet words at one end of the house, then run and jump to the other end for the big “say a prayer” bit. Damn that was fun. At that time I had no idea who James Brown was so I though this guy was the funkiest thing I’d seen. He had the leather jacket and motorcycle and sung about being bad and in love. The obvious highlights of the album were Wishing Well, Sign your name, If you all get to heaven and If you let me stay. The guy even had a reggae type song on the album with I’ll Never Turn My Back on You (Father’s Words).

D’Arby should’ve been the next Prince, but I think he pissed off enough journalists to bury him and now he is resigned to oblivion. Could this be the final proof that an army brat is always an army brat – even when they are extremely talented?

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4 thoughts on “Dance Little Sister

  1. dbee says:

    I didn’t know that Terence Trent D’Arby was a replacement for Michael Hutchence. I thought that job went to Jon Stevens from Noiseworks? TTD had some pretty cool songs tho..I do remember being very impressed with his talent.

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  2. Amy O says:

    I don’t think he recorded anything with them, he just performed one concert and pissed them off enough to never perform with them again. And thus I went in search of proof

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  3. Lily says:

    Hi!

    Well, the concert with INXS was a PLANNED one-time event to open the Olympic Stadion in Sydney in June 1999. The remark that he would have pissed them off is therefore inaccurate.

    He is making music alright, he just released Chapter 2 of his coming album “Angels & Vampires” on his website, free to download and have 3 listens, if you like them you can buy them. He uses the new innovating program “WEED” to spread his music over the web.

    See i.e. the article from REUTERS from this week at:
    http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=musicNews&storyID=6062360

    You can find his Official Site here:
    http://www.SanandaMaitreya.com

    or go directly to his new songs at:
    http://www.sanandamaitreya.com/angels_&_vampires/the_songs/chapter2.html

    Musical Greetigz,
    Lily
    His webmistress 🙂

    Reply
  4. Amyo says:

    I stand corrected by the train spotter. 😉 I think he was better off not being in inxs anyway, he was great by himself – didn’t need a band to lose his identity to. I will definitely check out his new music.

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