Joe Jackson

The artist presented today is one of my favorites. In his own words, before he'd identify himself as male, white, or British, he'd describe himself as a musician. Though he was born in a working-class dock town to parents with no musical leanings, he was drawn to classical music early on. A gawky, asthmatic, and uncomfortable child, he was beaten up often and had trouble fitting in. But he could hear music differently from most others around him and played violin and percussion until discovering the piano. He managed to play well enough to get a grant to attend the Royal Academy of Music, where he learned composition and played piano in a jazz group (and met folks such as Annie Lennox and Simon Rattle).

Eventually, though, he tired of the musical snobbery he found there, not only from "serious" musicians in regards to pop and punk but from modern classical enthusiasts toward more romantic music. He longed to make music that reached people, and he found value in most everything. He writes with passion about The Damned and The Clash as well as Shostakovich and Beethoven. His influences come from many different genres of music. His name is Joe Jackson.

David Ian "Joe" Jackson was born on 11 August 1954 in Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, England. He was an asthmatic child who was twice hospitalized, and "a bit of a loner". The first record he ever bought was Beethoven's Eroica Symphony, hardly typical for a working-class 14-year-old. To earn money he played piano in bars and clubs from the age of 16, in everything from cabaret acts to the Playboy Club to pub-rock bands. He eventually abandoned jazz and standards but continued to write classical pieces until he shook off his hesitation and formed his own band - as he says, not out of confidence but out of determination. He had, as he saw it, no other choice and no other skills.

His musical influences were diverse; in his own words, ''I was into the Beatles and the Stones and the Kinks until flower power came in. Then I got into classical music and jazz. In the early 70's, Steely Dan and Little Feat were about the only bands I felt were worth listening to. And then, as different things starting happening in England again, like David Bowie and Roxy Music, my interest in rock returned."

In 1978, a record producer heard Jackson's demo tape and signed him to A&M Records. The next year the newly formed Joe Jackson Band released their debut album, Look Sharp! A brilliant, accomplished debut, Look Sharp! established Joe Jackson as part of that camp of angry, intelligent young new wavers (i.e., Elvis Costello, Graham Parker) who approached pop music with the sardonic attitude and tense, aggressive energy of punk. Not as indebted to pub rock as Parker and Costello, and much more lyrically straightforward than the latter, Jackson delivers a set of bristling, insanely catchy pop songs that seethe with energy and frustration. Look Sharp! is the sound of a young man searching for substance in a superficial world - and it also happens to rock like hell.

The album enjoyed wide critical success: in 2013 Rolling Stone magazine named Look Sharp! #98 in a list of the 100 best debut albums of all time.

Is She Really Going Out With Him was the first single to be released from the album in 1978. It wasn't a hit the first time around, three more singles were then released, also not hits. However, when the single was reissued in the summer of 1979, it tapped into the New Wave zeitgeist and became a hit: #8 in Ireland, #9 in Canada, #13 in the UK, #15 in Australia, #18 in New Zealand, and #21 in the US.

According to Joe Jackson, the song originated from when he heard the title. From there, he came up with the basis for the song lyrics of "pretty women" dating "gorillas." He said of the song's origins in an interview:

"Now, that is just one of those songs that started with the title. I heard that phrase somewhere and I thought that could be a kind of funny song about gorgeous girls going out with monsters. It just started from there. It was just a funny song or supposed to be funny. It was a great surprise to me when some people interpreted it as being angry."

Between Graham Maby’s bass line, the perfectly singable chorus and the “Look over there / Where?” call-and-response hook, Is She Really Going Out With Him? is, more-or-less, the sound of New Wave boiled down into three minutes and 35 seconds.

These were the three "unsuccessful" singles, all great songs; first was Sunday Papers, a song that deals with the lack of thoughtful reflection in everyday life:

Then came One More Time; one marvels at bassist Graham Maby's  blend of speed and counterpoint melody. No matter how many times one listens to it, one can never predict where he’s going.

 The third single was Fools in Love, a great song that concerns the injuries and follies of romance.

Got The Time is an introspective and intriguing album track.

In Happy Loving Couples, as in other songs as well, Jackson presents himself on the one hand as a man of integrity seeking genuine depth in love (and elsewhere), but leavens his stance with a wry, self-effacing humor, revealing his own vulnerability to loneliness and to purely physical attraction.

After such a great debut album, his follow-up, I'm The Man (1979), holds together quite well as his second attempt. Reaching #12 in the UK and a respectable #22 in the US, the album solidified his position as a (reluctant) pop star. The title track was the album's lead single. I'm the Man showcases Jackson at his most frenzied, as a freight train's worth of lyrics pile haphazardly into one another alongside a wonderfully hysteric rhythm. Not only does the track show off Jackson's free-range ability, but his sense of humor arises once again, following in the footsteps of Is She Really Going Out With Him. Despite its quality, the single only charted in Canada (#23).

It's Different For Girls, the next single, was a big hit in Ireland (#4) and the UK (#5). Typically for Joe Jackson, the lyrics contain a twist in that, while originally sounding as if the song would suggest that the male protagonist was looking for sex and his female partner was looking for love, the opposite is revealed to be the case. Jackson later said on the song's lyrics:

"It was something that I heard somewhere that struck me as a cliché. The sort of thing that someone might say. And again, I thought, What could that be about? And that maybe the idea was to turn it on its head and have a conversation between a man and a woman and what you'd expect to be the typical roles are reversed. So that was the idea of that."

It's Different For Girls was also an inspiration for the 1996 romantic comedy of the same title, about two former schoolmates, one of whom will identify ad transexual when they meet again as grownups. Romance blossoms and all is well in the end in this pleasant British film, which has the added attraction of Rupert Graves (Maurice) in one of the two leading roles.

Jackson's new wave tendencies are toned down for I'm The Man but that doesn't restrain his talent, as songs like Kinda Kute, Amateur Hour, and Geraldine and John make for catchy side servings of attractive pop. Here's Kinda Kute:

This is Amateur Hour:

This is Geraldine and John:

Before the release of his next album, Joe released an EP whose main track was a cover version of Jimmy Cliff's reggae classic, The Harder They Come. The EP charted in the Netherlands (#34):

With Beat Crazy (1980), Jackson expanded his power pop and punk m.o. with reggae. The influence is quite evident on the album's first single, Mad at You:

Beat Crazy, the second single, is a personal favorite of Joe Jackson's. The lyrics of the song describe how kids of the time are too busy on drugs - saying that they are all too "beat crazy" - to take responsibility and get jobs.

One to One, a torching gem, was the album's third single. Like the other two, it, too, unfortunately, failed to chart.

Pretty Boys, a straight ska number, was a protest for the " Pretty boys [who] get to be big stars":

"I want to see a human being on my tv set
Want some action for the fat and thin man
They're getting closer but they ain't got robots yet
Just a hero with a smile like a tin man
No brains and no heart
Just pretty boys"

The Joe Jackson Band toured extensively until it broke up. Jackson subsequently recorded an album of old-style swing and blues tunes, Jumpin' Jive, with songs by Cab Calloway, Lester Young, Glenn Miller, and Louis Jordan. The album, Jumpin' Jive (1981) was credited to the band "Joe Jackson's Jumpin' Jive".

The album broke the Top 50 in the US and made it to #14 in the UK, #12 in New Zealand, and #29 in Australia, with the title track peaking at #43 in the UK, #32 in New Zealand, and #61 in Australia:

The Jumpin' Jive was a Cab Calloway song, while Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby? was a Louis Jordan hit:

... While Tuxedo Junction was a Glenn Miller smash:

1982 will forever be known as the year that the punks got class - or at least when Joe Jackson and Elvis Costello, rivals for the title of Britain's reigning Angry Young Man - decided that they were not just rockers, but really songwriters in the Tin Pan Alley tradition. (Graham Parker, fellow angry Brit, sat this battle out, choosing to work with Aerosmith producer Jack Douglas instead.) Both had been genre-hopping prior to 1982, but these two 27-year-olds (both born in August 1954, just two weeks apart) announced to the world that both were serious songwriters, with their releases Night And Day and Imperial Bedroom respectively.

Were these album's totally successful? No. But they did each have their moments of genius. Night And Day was also the album that contained one (or possibly two) songs that dealt with issues concerning LGBT+ people.

In Jackson's 1999 autobiography, A Cure for Gravity: A Musical Pilgrimage, he mentions that he likes both boys and girls but doesn't discuss any early gay experiences in the book. He does, however, disclose that he lived with bassist Graham Maby's sister for a couple years, and then was married to a woman called Ruth, for two years, but the marriage ended in divorce and was later called a "disaster" by Jackson.

Then there is Real Men, a haunting song that is among the album's best. It addresses contemporary sexual anxiety in a mixture of graceful chamber music and punchy pop-rock. These are the lyrics:

"Take your mind back, I don't know when
Sometime when it always seemed
To be just us and them
Girls that wore pink
And boys that wore blue
Boys that always grew up better men
Than me and you

What's a man now, what's a man mean
Is he rough or is he rugged
Is he cultural and clean
Now it's all change, it's got to change more
Cause we think it's getting better
But nobody's really sure

And so it goes, go round again
But now and then we wonder who the real men are

See the nice boys, dancing in pairs
Golden earring golden tan
Blow-wave in the hair
Sure they're all straight, straight as a line
All the gays are macho
Can't you see their leather shine

You don't want to sound dumb, don't want to offend
So don't call me a fagot
Not unless you are a friend
Then if you're tall and handsome and strong
You can wear the uniform and I could play along

And so it goes, go round again
But now and then we wonder who the real men are

Time to get scared, time to change plan
Don't know how to treat a lady
Don't know how to be a man
Time to admit, what you call defeat
Cause there's women running past you now
And you just drag your feet

Man makes a gun, man goes to war
Man can kill and man can drink
And man can take a whore
Kill all the blacks, kill all the reds
And if there's war between the sexes
Then there'll be no people left

And so it goes, go round again
But now and then we wonder who the real men are"

In a 2003 interview with Puremusic.com, Jackson opens up about himself while discussing the meaning behind his song Real Men:

"I see the gay identity has become more and more about being so masculine that you're more straight than the straight guys. And this is something that I find quite funny. I sort of get it, and at the same time, I don't like it that much. It's mixed feelings. And if we're talking about stereotypes, then I guess what I'm saying in the song is that I almost prefer the older stereotype - this sort of Oscar Wilde/Quentin Crisp gay stereotype."

The song is one of the most comprehensive studies of the different facets of masculinity ever put on song. Or, as somebody said, "the song is simply 'Who am I supposed to be?' and the answer is 'Don't label me!'"

Real Men was the album's first single. Even though it was a big hit in Australia (#6) and the Netherlands (#17), it only made #48 in New Zealand and #89 in the UK, failing to chart anywhere else. The subject matter was the main obstacle - many radio stations refused to play the song. The next two singles more than made up for it, however.

Steppin' Out is a song that pulsates anticipatory excitement. The song, inspired by Jackson's time in New York City, was his highest charting single in America, peaking at #6. It also peaked at #6 in the UK, at #5 in Canada and Ireland, #21 in New Zealand, #28 in Germany, and #30 in Australia. For his work, Jackson was nominated for two Grammy Awards, for Record of the Year and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.

The aching Breaking Us in Two is just as good as the two earlier singles. It was a hit, albeit smaller than the previous one: #18 US, #26 Ireland, #35 New Zealand, #40 Canada, #59 UK, and #90 in Australia.

A Slow Song is another song that could possibly have a gay connection. Owing more than a nod to the Righteous Brothers’ Unchained Melody, A Slow Song finds the narrator in a club, where he’s "brutalized by bass and terrorized by treble," as it builds to a gorgeously cathartic climax. The lyrics are careful not to mention the gender of Jackson's romantic partner in the song, however, in the 80s it was easier for straight people to find dancing clubs that would feature tender and romantic music. It was the gay clubs at the time that would almost exclusively play loud, pulsating music. Also the lyrics, "Am I the only one / To want a strong and silent sound / To pick me up and undress me / Lay me down and caress me," are more consistent with a longing for a male partner. Still, one can only speculate.

Another World, with its Latin jazz percussion and piano, kicks off Night And Day in grand style, a vibrant, multi-colored song that perfectly sets up the sonic and lyrical themes of the album.

Cancer is a droll mock-ad that cheerfully announces, ''Everything gives you cancer / There's no cure, there's no answer."

The hit singles and the quality album tracks made Night And Day Jackson's highest charting album ever; it peaked at #3 in the UK & the Netherlands, #4 in the US, #5 in Australia, #8 in New Zealand, and #11 in Germany.

Recorded about the same time as Night And Day, Joe Jackson's brilliant soundtrack to the movie Mike's Murder is consistent in quality to that 1982 pop music masterpiece. Unfortunately, the movie stiffed, so the record company did not back the record. From this album, let's listen to Memphis:

His next album, Body and Soul (1984) has Joe Jackson playing both hot- and cool-styled jazz songs. The melodies were Beatles-esque, the lyrics were clever but not pretentious, and the arrangements were sophisticated. Every song had been inspired by a different genre, yet the entire album coalesced due to its unique use of horns and Joe’s distinctively unpolished singing voice full of blithe assertiveness. It was also a big hit, although smaller than Night And Day.

Body and Soul opens with the drum- and horn-heavy The Verdict, inspired by the Paul Newman film of the same name. In it, Joe equates the loneliness and stage fright of performing with that of a frontline solicitor representing a witness in a high-profile legal case.

Cha Cha Loco is a Latin-flavoured homage to the joys of dancing:

Not Here, Not Now is a fragile piano-based song of love put on hold:

Happy Ending is a catchy pop duet with Elaine Caswell, a boy-meets-girl romp through a date movie that even places the song in history: “It’s not so easy / It’s ’84 now.” It was a minor hit in Europe, doing its best in the Netherlands (#19):

Be My Number Two, is one of Joe’s most confessional songs of that era relying almost exclusively on his piano as accompaniment. Jackson’s yearning vocal adds vulnerability, particularly in the middle. Unfortunately, it only managed to become a minor hit in the UK (#70):

The explosive You Can't Get What You Want, with an intoxicating, jazz-inspired guitar solo from Vinnie Zumo, went to #15 in the US and #30 in Canada, thanks to the brilliant horn work and colorful jazz-pop mingling of all the other instruments, not to mention Jackson's suave singing. Unfortunately, it was his last major hit.

In early 1986, Joe (on piano) assisted Suzanne Vega with Left Of Center, a song included in the Pretty In Pink soundtrack.

Jackson made a complete turnaround for his next album, Big World (1986). Instead of delving deeper into jazz, Joe pared his lineup down to a basic guitar, bass, and drums rock combo and recorded all of the album live in front of an audience in a move to avoid the over-production that bogged down records of its period. Interestingly, he insisted the audience not make a sound during the recording, so this doesn't sound like a live album, except in the spots where his voice wears a bit thin.

At times, it works marvelously, such as in Home Town:

... or Right and Wrong:

... or Tonight and Forever:

Will Power (1987) is mostly a good exercise in self-indulgence but little of anything else.

In 1988 he composed the soundtrack to F.F. Coppola's film, Tucker. From it, here's (He's A) Shape in a Drape:

Next came a live career retrospective, called Live 1980/86 (1988). From it, here's Sunday Papers:

A loose concept album about a second-generation rock & roller struggling to come to terms with maturity, Blaze of Glory (1989) holds together fairly well, as the story takes a backseat to individual songs. While that does mean that the concept is never fleshed out, the approach results in a handful of brisk, stylish pop songs - including Nineteen Forever and Down to London - that are more compelling than the story itself. Here's Nineteen Forever:

... and this is Down to London:

After the arena rock of Blaze of Glory, Joe Jackson returned to his roots to deliver the most straightforward pop album in his career in Laughter & Lust (1991). While Jackson's late-'80s output is composed of intelligent, if often forgettable, adult pop/rock, Laughter & Lust feels almost like a snotty declaration of Jackson's pop skills. He's "been there, done that" with pop music, and with Laughter & Lust he shows off just how effortlessly he can construct a commercially viable pop album. Nowhere is this more present than on the bitter Hit Single, a tirade about the disposability of pop music and the public's inability to digest more than "just the hit single." But Jackson saves this inscrutable slap in the face of his fans by setting it to - surprise - a massive pop hook. 

And it's that paradox that exists all over Laughter & Lust; songs like Stranger Than Fiction and When You're Not Around sound so effortless, so catchy, so made for radio - and yet you know that Joe Jackson constructed these songs just because he could, not necessarily because he wanted to. It's a testament as much to Jackson's abilities as it is to his ego, and Laughter & Lust became his not-so-subtle goodbye to pop music, as he would continuously foray into "serious" music from here on out. Still, for a fan who can see past the attitude, Laughter & Lust does deliver more bang for the buck than any Jackson album since Night and Day, simply because Jackson really does know how to construct a good pop song, even if he's condescending while doing it.

This is Stranger Than Fiction:

This is When You're Not Around:

This is Obvious Song, a #2 hit on the US alt. rock chart:

... Finally, this is the Fleetwood Mac cover, Oh Well:

Jackson turned away from the pop mainstream with the gentle, soul-searching Night Music (1994), the experimental satirical opera Heaven & Hell (1997), & Symphony #1 (1999), which won a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Album.

From Night Music, this is The Man Who Wrote Danny Boy:

From Heaven & Hell, this is Passacaglia/A Bud and a Slice, featuring Brad Roberts of the Crash Test Dummies:

From Symphony #1, this is Fast Movement:

At the turn of the century, Jackson released Night and Day II. From it, here's Love Got Lost, with guest vocals from Marianne Faithfull and Alexandra Montano:

This is Stranger Than You:

In 2003, Jackson reunited his original band, an event celebrated by the release of Volume 4. The album opened with Take It Like a Man:

This is Chrome:

By 1984, New York had become Jackson's home base. He lived there for almost a quarter of a century and then he moved to Berlin. Jackson's vacating his home in New York (he still has a place in Portsmouth) in 2006 had an air of protest about it: the singer was objecting to the ban on smoking in public places, and wrote on the subject in his diligently researched, widely quoted paper, Smoke, Lies and the Nanny State. He even wrote a song about it, called In 20-0-3. It was self-distributed via his personal website and not available on any album.

The lyrics of In 20-0-3 criticize the decision of New York mayor Michael Bloomberg in the year 2003 to ban smoking in every bar and club in the city, claiming that 'secondhand smoke' was killing 1,000 New Yorkers per year. In his words, "I don't feel like a place is civilized unless they let me smoke, and if they don't let me smoke I feel really insulted. I hate the whole nanny state thing. OK, they're entitled to inform us about things, but after that leave us alone!"

The proceeds of this song went towards fighting smoking bans.

Jackson promised that the reunion with his original band would be a one-off, and technically he's kept his word on Rain, recorded in Berlin in 2008, this album was cut as a trio, with Jackson backed by bassist Graham Maby and drummer Dave Houghton from the original Joe Jackson Band, but without the presence of guitarist Gary Sanford. Minus Sanford, Rain is a bit smoother and more refined than Volume 4. Jackson also supplies much of his usual tart wit as a lyricist, pondering his own retreat from A-list stardom in Invisible Man:

Joe seems to have fallen in love with Berlin and the idea of losing himself within it. "It's a big, relatively empty city with an abundance of real estate and a great sense of freedom," he says. "You don't have a CCTV camera in your face everywhere you go, so why the hell can't it be like that in England?"

This is Solo (So Low):

The Duke (2012), finds Jackson experimenting with the music of Duke Ellington, reinterpreting a number of his compositions in styles that stray far from the original arrangements. Sharon Jones nails I Ain't Got Nothin' But the Blues with guts and panache:

His latest album, Fast Forward, came out in 2015. It was recorded in four parts, with Jackson cutting four songs each in four different cities, with a different set of musicians accompanying him for each of the four sessions. Jackson's refined melodic sense and straightforward but splendidly executed keyboard work dominate the performances regardless of his surroundings, and while he has some impressive talent joining him here - Bill Frisell and Brian Blade in New York, Stefan Kruger and Stefan Schmid of Zuco 103 in Amsterdam, Greg Cohen and Earl Harvin in Berlin, and several members of Galactic in New Orleans - above all, this sounds like Joe Jackson, complete with his arch wit, polished songcraft, and intelligence that only occasionally dips into stuffiness. So You Say is one of the best songs in the album:

Ode to Joy is the album's closing track:

Jackson's lack of conventional good looks and his sometimes awkward behavior prevented him from becoming the pop star he most definitely could have been. Still, an active career of more than 40 years, which includes recording 19 studio albums and winning 5 Grammy Award nominations is no small matter.