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"...Always Someone Breaking Us In Two..."
When you cop the 78-minute-plus playing times for each CD offered in "This Is It: The A&M Years 1979-1989" by JOE JACKSON – you realize that’s TWO double-albums worth of quality songs across both discs – and for often under a fiver in the secondhand market place – six or seven quid at the most. Wow!
A bit of a songwriting barnstormer in my book – my pubescent mates and hairy-self fell immediately for Joe Jackson and that stunner debut LP "Look Sharp!" His debut was a razor-tie pinpointed winkelpicker shoes snarling observation on New-Wave England and the dating scene in 1978 and 1979. Sassy lyrics, catchy tunes and angular beats that smacked of Dagenham Dave behind a microphone doing you an emotional favour sunshine. And like Sting with his band The Police, Joe Jackson's albums kept progressing and zigzagging genre wise, so always felt like something to get excited about.
And so it is here. This unassuming but stunning 2CD goody
two shoes Anthology for his first
decade with A&M Records...delivers. You and me against
the world...here are the details...
UK released February 1997 - "This Is It: The A&M Years 1979-1989" by JOE JACKSON on A&M 540 402-2 (Barcode 731454040228) is a 37-Track 2CD Career Anthology (Tracks Chosen by the Artists) of Remasters that plays out as follows (reissued as "Gold" in 2008):
CD1 (78:16 minutes):
1. Is She Really Going Out With Him?
2. Fools In Love
3. One More Time
4. Sunday Papers
5. Look Sharp!
6. Got The Time (Live)
7. On Your Radio
8. It's Different For Girls
9. Don't Wanna Be Like That
10. Amateur Hour
11. I'm The Man
12. Tilt
13. Someone Up There
14. One To One
15. Beat Crazy
16. Biology
17. Jumpin' Jive
18. What's The Use Of Getting Sober, When You're Gonna Get Drunk Again
19. Is She Really Going out With Him? (Live)
20. Another World
NOTES on CD1:
Tracks 1 to 6 are from his debut LP "Look Sharp!" released January 1979 in the UK on A&M Records AMLH 64743
Tracks 7 and 19 are from "Live 1980/1986" released May 1988 in the UK on A&M Records AMA 6706 (2LPs) and A&M Records CDA 6706 (2CDs)
Tracks 8 to 11 are from his 2nd album "I'm The Man" released October 1979 in the UK on A&M Records AMLH 64794
Track 12 is a Non-LP B-side to "The Harder They Come", a June 1980 UK 45-Single on A&M Records AMS 7536. The A-side is a Jimmy Cliff cover – the B-side (the track featured on this compilation) is a Joe Jackson original
Tracks 13 to 16 are from his 3rd studio album "Beat Crazy" released October 1980 in the UK on A&M Records AMLH 64837
Tracks 17 and 18 are from 4th studio album "Joe Jackson's Jumpin' Jive" released June 1981 in the UK on A&M Records AMLH 65830. The whole album is cover versions of Forties and Fifties Louis Jordan Rhythm 'n' Blues hits
Track 20 is from his 5th studio album "Night And Day" released June 1982 in the UK on A&M Records AMLH 64906
CD2 (78:18 minutes):
1. Breaking Us In Two
2. Chinatown
3. Real Men
4. Steppin' Out
5. A Slow Song
6. You Can't Get What You Want (Till You Know What You Want)
7. Not Here, Not Now
8. Be My Number Two
9. Happy Ending (Duet with Elaine Caswell)
10. Wild West (Live)
11. Right And Wrong (Live)
12. Home Town (Live)
13. Precious Time (Live)
14. Me And You (Against The World)
15. Down To London (Duet with Joy Askew)
16. Nineteen Forever
17. The Human Touch
NOTES on CD2:
Tracks 1 to 5 are from his 5th studio album "Night And Day" released June 1982 in the UK on A&M Records AMLH 64906
Tracks 6 to 9 are from his album "Body And Soul" released March 1984 in the UK on A&M Records AMLX 65000
Tracks 10 to 13 are from his double live set "Big World" released March 1986 in the UK on A&M Records JWA 3 – all new material recorded in front of a live audience
Tracks 14 to 17 are from his album "Blaze Of Glory" released April 1989 on A&M Records AMA 5249
The 12-page booklet features new liner notes from RICHARD SMITH and AMY SCHEIBE on his 10-year career with Herb Alpert's record label (highs and lows). A self-professed seeker of better songs and artistic fulfilment – his albums were good but often infuriated fans and critics – one of whom described him as having "...gone completely mad..." And yet song after song shows a songwriter able to move your heart and your hips. There is a Source Discography on the back pages, three photos of our hero and really superb ROGER WAKE Remasters from original tapes. To the music...
It will come as no surprise to fans to see that the kick-ass debut album "Look Sharp!" from January 1979 is represented here by five tunes – the big hit of course being "Is She Really Going Out With Him?" - the song that broke him everywhere. But jagged edge social HP Sauce songs like "Fools In Love" and "Sunday Papers" immediately clumped Joe Jackson into the angry-young-man filing cabinet at GCHQ alongside his country compatriots Graham Parker, Ian Dury and Elvis Costello. While the hit "It's Different For Girls" grabbed all the airplay, the second album offered more of what made the debut so smart. And yet I wager most have forgotten how good ballsy stuff like "Don't Wanna Be Like That" is (the Remaster bass is likely to bust your speaker cones) - or the so-New-Wave hurt in "Amateur Hour" where she is moving up and so moving out. Drums whack your living room like a wet kipper – Kung Fu, Skateboards and Hula Hoops all made respectable in "I'm The Man" (wanna buy a watch).
A clever inclusion of a live version of "Tilt" means that the listen lines up for a foursome of angry rants from the "Beat Crazy" LP. Sounding amazing, "One On One" comes at you with that Piano and Organ intro all guns blazing – as does The Stranglers-type Bass of "Biology". But at this point, the first three albums are beginning to show songwriting stagnation (and I'm sure he knew it), so it was time for a change. So you immediately go into the Louis Jordan Forties and Fifties Rhythm & Blues of "Jumpin' Jive" – the clarity of the Remaster will make you fell nine foot tall when you're four foot five (I like my eggs on the Jersey side). Blindingly great fun comes in the drunken lurch that is "What's The Use Of Getting Sober, When You're Gonna Get Drunk Again" where dear old pappy is about to blow his wig. There comes something you don't expect – a near Acapella live version of "Is She Really Going Out With Him?" which really works (its Jeannie with her new boyfriend) and breaks up the listen before the drums and keyboard wallop of sophistication that is "Another World" - the opening track on the near audiophile-sounding "Body And Soul" album.
The "Body And Soul" album (complete with natty gatefold sleeve) blew everyone away with its leap into sophistication. We did indeed step into another world. Five tracks from it open CD2 with a fantastic run of songs – the Rock-Funk of "Steppin' Out" catching the ear of American Radio too. Even now songs like "Breaking Us In Two" and "Real Men" have stood the test of songwriting time – forty-one years on and still sounding contemporary to the point of prophetic. When the 2LP set "Big World" was released and both fans and critics realized Jackson had done the entire set of new songs in front of a live audience in order to get freshness into the final performances – most flipped out – and unfortunately not in a good way.
Hearing them now in 2023 – and even though they are so damn clean and polished etc – they are oddly sterile. You can so hear that the fab four presented on here (Tracks 10 to 13 on CD2) would have been so much stronger had they been properly recorded studio cuts with the appropriate Production Values they cried out for. But all is forgiven as we romp home with a fantastic trio from his much praised and beloved "Blaze Of Glory" album – his last for A&M Records in 1989 – the brass, the licks, the catchy choruses that sway – brilliant.
A dynamite twofer and proof that quantity and quality can last into two double-album's worth and still leaving you jiving for me. Fools In Love given The Human Touch – and I for one have always been Steppin' Out Down To London for that...
