The 1991 INXS Single Featuring Keith Urban Singing Alongside Michael Hutchence

A year after releasing their megahit X, the band’s third hit album with producer Chris Thomas—Listen Like Thieves (1985), Kick (1987)—INXS released their first live album, Live Baby Live.

For the album, the band went into the studio in London the day after their epic sold-out concert for 74,000 people at Wembley Stadium on July 13, 1991, to record a new single.

Written by INXS’ Andrew Farriss, “Shining Star” is filled with some of the unpleasantness that comes with stardom.

I got a plan
Yeah, you got a plan
Gotta plan ahead
I got a plan that’ll make you a star
Make you get rich
Make you go far

Take a life and throw it on a bus
Make you feel like you make a fuss
Bright ideas and a fast feel, too
Make you feel like you gotta feel unglued

Videos by American Songwriter

Shining star
Shining star
Shining star yeah
Take my soul
Just leave me with your heart
Loving heart
Just leave me with your heart
Shining star

There you go
Way up high
Drove your mind and cheat your heart
Make you wanna feel before it gets too hot
Let them gun you down while you run around
Before your Shining star has gone

Joining the band in the studio that day were two backing vocalists, including a then-unknown singer, Keith Urban, and the band’s regular collaborator, Stuart McKie, former vocalist for the Australian hard rock band Doomfoxx.

At the time, Urban, who was invited to the studio by INXS’ Kirk Pengilly, still hadn’t released his self-titled debut.

“I was living with some friends in Crows Nest,” recalled Urban in a 2021 interview around the 30th anniversary of the band’s Wembley show. “Kirk Pengilly called and said, ‘Do you want to come to the studio? The whole band is here.’ Hell yeah. I was dragged in next to Michael Hutchence to do backing vocals on ‘Shining Star.’ It was surreal.”

[RELATED: Remember When INXS Played Their Final Concert with Michael Hutchence]

Urban and INXS, Through the Years

Along with Scottish-Australian singer Jimmy Barnes, Urban also recorded the Easybeats’ 1968 hit “Good Times” in 2014. Barnes originally recorded the song with INXS in 1986 for the soundtrack (along with “Laying Down the Law”) for the 1987 film The Lost Boys.

Urban also occasionally performs some INXS classics live, including the band’s 1985 hit “What You Need” during a concert in October 2024.

In January 2025, Urban also joined INXS’ Andrew Farriss on stage at the Grand Ole Opry for a performance of the band’s 1987 hit “Never Tear Us Apart.” Farriss, who released his self-titled solo country debut in 2021 and became a member of the Grand Ole Opry on December 14, 2024, wrote “Never Tear Us Apart” with INXS frontman Michael Hutchence, who died in 1997 at the age of 37. When released, the song peaked at No. 7 in the U.S.

“I’ve always been a songwriter, and because of that, I have respect for other writers, particularly country writers,” Farriss told American Songwriter in 2022. “Someone said to me, ‘Oh, you’re going country, welcome to the dark side,’ as if there’s no darker genre.”

Farriss continued, “I think lyrically, especially if you think back to earlier times, whether it was songs about a circle being unbroken or a funeral, those aren’t topics a pop writer would sing. It’s getting right into your heart and soul, and it makes you a bit emotional.”

Photo: Lynn Goldsmith/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images