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Lenny Kravitz Waffles About Madonna Song, David Lee Roth Gives More Than Enough, INXS On Tour: This Week In 1990

It was a bit of an embarrassing week for Lenny Kravitz, the man credited with writing and producing Madonna's single "Justify My Love." First the rap group Public Enemy popped up wondering why the percussion track in that record bore such an uncanny resemblance to a two-year-old P.E. track recorded with live musicians called "Security of the First World."

"I don't know which beat it is, actually," Kravitz said about where he got the rhythm track. "It's just one of those beats you find on the floor somewhere."

Then Ingrid Chavez, the singer and actress who costarred in Prince's "Graffiti Bridge" flick, turned up claiming that she had written and recorded "Justify My Love" with Kravitz in Los Angeles the previous summer, and that Madonna had merely copied her demo. This seemed to jog Kravitz's memory, as he quickly announced that it was true and that he'd had Chavez sign an agreement giving her 25 percent of the songwriting royalties in return for his taking full credit for writing the song. Kravitz said he did this for "personal reasons."

Master entertainer David Lee Roth was gearing up to burst back up on the scene with a new band, a new album called A Little Ain't Enough and a tour.

"I'm the guy who told you years ago that everybody wants something," Diamond Dave expounded. "Well that was then, this is now. Now it's 1991 and if everybody wants something, well then a little ain't enough. It appeared to me that if it was a good working title for a single then it would be a great working title for an album and a spectacular working title for an entire career."

For his third solo LP, rather than recording in his familiar surroundings of Los Angeles, the former Van Halen frontman headed north to Vancouver where he managed to create some controversy with a buxom babe spray-painted on the side of his studio.

"It upset some people. I told them, 'Ten thousand years from now when they dig up Vancouver, they can either find a blank white wall in a parking lot and go, "Lucky we didn't live back then," or they can dig up something with a great graphic on it.' "

And what would the new Roth album sound like?

"Well, you can expect lead-with-your-face guitar," he said, "kind of blues rock sort of whoop-it-up, drop-your-pants kind of rock and roll."

INXS, meanwhile, launched a world tour in Europe. The trek was a return to the stage for the band that, after its successful Kick album and tour, had had enough.

"We've been doing this for a long time," the group's Andy Farriss said. "This hasn't been an overnight success for the group, so I think we've managed to sort of achieve an equilibrium. This touring forever business ... we did that last time to the point where it actually sort of physically injured a couple of us, but we're better now and everything's OK.

"You can look at the whole touring thing two ways," he continued. "You can be the tortured artist -- which we've all had a turn doing -- or you can basically look after yourself and enjoy the experience. It's up to you. It's your choice and whichever way you go, then you chose it."

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