Joe Jackson Band: "Beat Crazy"

8 January 1981

"It's wise to ignore Joe's caustic jibes about the slaves of fashion and just succumb to the forceful reggae-boned attack. It's hard to tell if he's serious anyway."

— Mark Ellen

When it comes to Joe Jackson's chart fortunes it was either sink or swim. The new wave classic "Is She Really Going Out with Him?" took its time but it eventually made the Top 20, even if it deserved better. As if to overcompensate, the inferior "It's Different for Girls" did brisk enough business to end up all the way in the UK Top 5. Solid, encouraging performances for Jackson but there was little else to show for it. Stellar (if sometimes unlikeable) singles  "Sunday Papers", "One More Time" and "I'm the Man" all failed to capitalize on his success and it wouldn't be until 1982 that he had a belated return to the charts — and one that proved to be yet another one off.

Even with all that in mind, his early-eighties' commercial fall off seems difficult to comprehend. Jackson's first two albums — Look Sharp and I'm the Man, both from a very productive 1979 — were critically acclaimed and their respective chart peaks showed an upward trend. Then it all came undone with Beat Crazy. Credited to the Joe Jackson Band, it appropriately allowed the spotlight to shine a bit more on the largely overlooked trio that backed his nibs. Bassist Graham Maby even takes the bulk of the lead vocal on the title track, a fact Mark Ellen fails to point out in his review. (Not that I blame him, I always assumed it was Jackson himself trying to be a little more vocally dexterous) Nevertheless, there's no question who's in charge. Fans and critics may have wanted more of the same but he was not about to grant them that wish.

It probably didn't help that this is a song that goes after the very people who were potential Joe Jackson fans. Ellen advises that we should take no notice of him and that's probably wise counsel when dealing with him in general. His fans may have seen it otherwise but his wit failed to register to the same extent as fellow late-seventies songsmiths Elvis Costello, Chris Difford, Nick Lowe and Andy Partridge; indeed, they could all give Jackson a serious run in the 'grumpiest man in pop' stakes yet they all possessed a charm that he never had. XTC were often content to explore the generational gulf the way Jackson does here in songs such as "This Is Pop", "Respectable Street" and "No Thugs in Our House" but their efforts didn't leave listeners questioning their motives to nearly the same extent.

That said, Ellen is correct that the tune is what we should be focused on. Shifting between hard-hitting ska and a wistful, swaying waltz, it is far more musically advanced than your average new waver or Birmingham-based reggae outfit. Time shifts, tempo changes, these aren't the hallmarks of an oik hiding behind punk. And this makes me wonder that he might have agreed with more than a little of the sentiments in "Beat Crazy". The kids were persisting with wasting their time ("it's such a crime") in a subgenre that had long become tired. And for the sartorial Jackson, his observations on their distinct lack of style ("they say the world is in a mess / but they can talk the way they dress") rings more than a little true.

Ellen is especially taken by the flip side of "Beat Crazy" and this live version of "Is She Really Going Out with Him?" is a wonderful slice of where Jackson had been and where he was headed, if not where he stood at the moment. The song's sparse, new wave arrangement obscured just what a perfect pop song it always was and this quality shines all the more in this live rendition that, in Ellen's words, recalls The Nolans — and which still manages to remain outstanding! Largely a cappella, it suggests a much more easy listening sound on the horizon and that's no bad thing. His musical gifts had been languishing behind being in a rock band and it was time for the real Joe Jackson to emgerge. Sure, this meant the blossoming of a curmudgeon but so too did "Steppin' Out", "Real Men" and "Breaking Us in Two" and this is the Joe Jackson that matters to me — pop stardom be damned.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Lincoln Thompson & The Rasses: "Spaceship"

Marrying Jamaican music with space rock may not seem like the greatest idea but Joe Meek and Scratch Perry have always had more than a little in common: both made studio limitations into playgrounds for a kind of Blue Peter, cobbled-together futurism. (Dub classics such as The Upsetters' Super Ape and Augustus Pablo's King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown owed at least as much to "Telstar" as they did to "My Boy Lollipop") Within this context, "Spaceship" is a triumph and doesn't even feature any of the major players mentioned above (though it does include contributions from the Joe Jackson Band). Well worth checking out.

Fischer-Z: "Remember Russia"

8 March 1979

"Dr. Who meets future shock victims in the scarred wastes where radioactive debris rains on mankind."

— Cliff White

It was still a couple months prior to John F. Kennedy's famous "We choose to go to the Moon" speech but the launch of the first Telstar satellite in 1962 was a key moment in the Space Race. Having been embarrassed by the Soviets with Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin (and even Laika), the first NATO-friendly communications satellite was a coup and was probably even looked upon favourably even by those who considered lunar travel a waste of time and resources. We were now upon an era of instant communication, even if the mail remained slow and it could take months or even years for a pop hit to cross the Atlantic.

Just twelve days later, nutcase genius producer Joe Meek gathered with his wards The Tornados to record "Telstar". As extraordinary as its namesake, it is three minutes of instrumental surf rock with effects that still dazzle, particularly with its distinctive use of the clavioline. Though obviously futuristic, it retains a charming primitive quality and one can practically see the string holding up the spaceship as it hurtles its way through space. The music wasn't made by computers, it was cut and mixed by dour men in lab coats and, indeed, so too were the shuttles being sent out to orbit the Earth. Rather than being built by robots or 3D printers, they were very hands on projects with music critic Neil Kulkarni observing that last year's fiftieth anniversary footage of the Apollo 11 Moon landing showed a ship that was very "Blue Peter".

If we then jump ahead to the late seventies the landscape has altered. Space exploration has been culled, the glory days of space rock — from The Byrds' "Mr. Spaceman" to Pink Floyd's "Set Controls for the Heart of the Sun" and on to all kinds of prog rock nonsense — have been and gone and, yet, machines are beginning to take over as man becomes redundant. Young children had Star Wars figurines to maintain the illusion but to many technology was showing its ugly side and it wouldn't be for another three or four years as families began buying up home computers and VCRs that the average citizen could at least be placated by a sense that they were getting something out of it.

This void of progress leaving everyone behind is the backbone of "Remember Russia" by Berkshire group Fischer-Z. This being 1979, it's tempting to take the skeletal reggae, hyper-dramatic vocals and tight, choppy group performance as being not unlike The Police, albeit with the added attraction of an unsettling organ as an add on. Repeated listenings, however, begin to expose the differences. Where Sting could never quite remove tongue from cheek, lead "Fish's Head" John Watts means every word he sings. I've belittled earnestness in the likes of Jim Kerr but here it works well. Watts refuses to spell out the incidence and one YouTube comment helpfully points out that "this song is amazing and has real meaning to those that understand" but even that misses the point. You don't have to have lived through some sort of technological wasteland to feel moved by this song. When Watts screams "damn those satellites to hell!" you're right there with him.

It's easy to take "Remember Russia" on face value, that it's a diatribe against Communism and the planned economy, but there's nothing to suggest that's what Watts had in mind. Instead, I propose that he's arguing that the Soviets place little value on human life and, while we in the West are meant to be against everything our Iron Curtain counterparts stand for, it's beginning to spread throughout the world. Tech is leaving us all behind and we're even letting it happen. We're now more than forty years on from then but this is still relevant, if not more so. And it still sounds great. Maybe it's every bit as futuristic as "Telstar".

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Joe Jackson: "Sunday Papers"

Wags didn't know what to do with disco and punk but at least they had pub rock that they could wrap their heads around. Elvis Costello and Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe and Graham Parker & The Rumour: they all wrote classic pop-rock with just enough chords and they all had humour. Joe Jackson never quite fit in with this lot but he got lumped in with them all the same. More strident and with a knack for taking empathetic situations and making you side with whoever did him wrong, he churned out some great but unlikable tunes over the years. "Sunday Papers" is a prime example: nicely played and sung (assuming you can stomach Jackson's voice) but with an undeserved smarminess, like that guy on Twitter who makes hackneyed observations but is convinced they're original thoughts. And for all his bluster about press, I'm sure he's right there with them when they go on about the nanny state and how political correctness is the greatest blight currently facing humanity.

Wham!: "Wham Rap! (Enjoy What You Do)"

24 June 1982

"I'd be lost in admiration if I could find time to stand still."

— Neil Tennant

No one was to know it at the time but a pop music phenomenon and a major talent was quietly establishing itself in the summer of 1982. Wham! were the last of British pop's eighties big four to have a number one hit but the first to enjoy the modest status of a SOTF from ver Hits. While none were overnight sensations, Wham! had the distinct advantage of George Michael's astounding talent to help them avoid the creative wilderness that hampered the development of contemporaries Culture Club, Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet.

While few were listening this early on, Wham! did have Neil Tennant on their side (who would later pen a sort-of tribute to the moody George Michael). While the pop music obsessive in him knew what a magnificent romp "Wham Rap!" is, wearing his critic's hat may have cottoned him on fast to Michael's considerable abilities and the budding pop star inside must have been jealous that these pretty boy nineteen-year-old's were able to cut something so irresistible and so on point at such an early stage.

Up until this point, songs about unemployment in Thatcher's Britain veered towards statements of hopelessness and hostility. The Clash's "Career Opportunities", recorded two years prior to Thatcher's rise to power, examines a wasteland of few job prospects out there for young people. XTC's "Making Plans for Nigel", while humourous in its own right, takes on clueless parents and government placement schemes assuming that their charges are indeed "happy in [their] work". "Wham Rap!" was an altogether different proposition. Thatcherism didn't simply cause thousands to go out of work but created a culture of permanent joblessness and Wham! were the first to capture this resignation while marrying it to a quintessentially eighties hedonism. Forget about getting a job, don't bother even if you manage land one, just sign on to the dole, collect benefits and enjoy your life. 

Wham! may have been first on the pop scene to make a virtue of unemployment but there were others out there with something similar in mind. The now mostly forgotten comedy Shelley was about a thirty something well-educated layabout with no desire to find work. (By the mid-eighties, this contented-on-the-dole mentality was even yuppified on the comedy-soap series Bread) In real life, meanwhile, a young and talented writer named Geoff Dyer was effortlessly making the transition from Oxford undergrad to the dole queue. ("If Oxford had given me a taste for idleness, living on the dole in Brixton refined it still further"; see his illuminating essay "On the Roof" for more on his period of being part of the "aristocracy of welfare dependence")

The very idea of George Michael kicking it in rap mode may seem laughable and it is. It's not unlike one of those shapeless, impromptu raps that adolescents in the nineties would conjure up for just for the hell of it (my own attempt was from all the way back in 1991 when I penned the immortal "Joys of Shopping", complete with "hilarious" verses straight out of a Will Smith lark). His music wouldn't be joyous for much longer so it's likely he never contemplated rapping again but it's a commendable one-off. (A white British pop act wouldn't be able to pull off rap until Neil Tennant tried his hand at it some three years later)

In researching this week's post I decided to google search 'songs about unemployment'. "Well, that was a waste of time," I said to myself five minutes after doing so. Of course there is a place for hard scrabble, all-American tunes about desperate individuals struggling to put food on the table but it comes from a world of the Dust Bowl and Steinbeck novels. Michael and best mate Andrew Ridgely both had their fill of plates of egg and chips but were determined to make life on the dole be the party that it always should've been.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Joe Jackson: "Real Men"

While George Michael was busy standing up for his (unemployed) manhood, Joe Jackson was questioning the very core of masculinity with "Real Men". Once a sickly youth who doubtless took no pleasure in mucking about in a rugby scrum, he was now ensconced in a New York gay subculture in the midst of enduring marginalisation, beatings and the growing AIDS epidemic and puts forth the theory that maybe these are the real men — if, that is, I'm reading it right. My song deciphering skills may not but up to much but I sure do appreciate Jackson's seriously good vocal performance, effortlessly spitting out bile and tugging at the heart all at once. Note: I'm seriously considering writing a parody of this written from the perspective of psychologist/YouTube superstar Jordan Peterson and his supposed crisis of masculinity. Anyone who can do good Kermit the Frog impersonation is welcome to get in touch with me.