The Joe Jackson Band -
Beat Crazy 1980 ( 2007 re-master )
With this, his third record, the musically-restless Jackson begins to pull away from the audience he built riding the British Punk Rock wave with his first two albums. Like his contemporary Elvis Costello, Jackson was never really a punk act but benefited from being in the right place at the right time. And like Costello, Jackson followed his muse into a career where the popularity levels attained with early hits like
Is She Really Going Out With Him soon became a distant memory ( and for fans of his early work who dropped off the bandwagon, a fond one ). Future forays into jazz, big band and eventually classical would take him further and further away from the mainstream although he did "put the band back together" for a short period in the early 2000's before heading back off into jazz. Unlike Costello, to this point Joe Jackson has not felt any necessity to attempt to write an opera. For this, we are grateful.
D.D.
