Skip to main content

Review: Joe Jackson's Rain

On the day when the media reflects on the death of Joan Jackson (nee Joan Hunter Dunn), I've come to listen, finally, to the new release by Joe Jackson, the CD Rain. I agree with a review at the BBC site which says it is a great work. I'm tempted to say it's Jackson's entirely unanticipated, and unheralded, late masterpiece. Indeed, there's something triumphant in its effortlessly cool pop achievement, and something oddly stirring - for Jackson has been an "Invisible Man" (the title of the opening track) for years now, except perhaps as a grumpy pro-smoking activist (a stance I tend to disagree with). Jackson's career began 29 years ago (in 1979), and he's always been more famous and admired in North America, where the British "New Wave" sound he pioneered with Elvis Costello and a few others caught on - even more than back home.

His four biggest albums are Look Sharp!, I'm The Man, Night And Day, and Body And Soul, and over the course of these, Jackson refined his nasal whine, his acid, even snide, wit, and his Jazz-pop hybrid (moving from guitars to piano, more and more) - really playing with how sentiment and cool could coincide (usually by marrying sad-sack heartbreak themes with ironic lashings of bile). Often, his snarling humour marred the overall tone of the work, while paradoxically sometimes being its best element. The best of Jackson has the joy of the music from the Peanuts' cartoons, and Rain has that keyboard zest (especially on "Citizen Sane").

He's always been a more talented musician (and better singer) than Costello, but never quite received his due. I met him a few years back, in Marylebone, leaving a Waitrose store, carrying milk. We spoke briefly, but he was a little tetchy. I don't think he appreciated my enthusiasm for his work (I was, after all, just a fan). I think Jackson is one of the greatest of British popular musicians of the post-Beatles era, and Rain has several songs ("Too Tough" and "King Pleasure Time" for instance) that are among his finest - classics-to-be. This is one of the albums of 2008.
Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
Very clever segue, Todd! I love the new look.
Thu Apr 17, 04:45:00 pm 2008
rosemary dun said…
Being a girl I love his "It's Different For Girls" and yes I do have a poem with that title.
Rosemary x
Sun Apr 20, 06:16:00 pm 2008
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se.  What do I mean by smart?
3 comments
Read more

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and  Silence of the Lambs .  I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".
1 comment
Read more

THE SWIFT REPORT 2023

I am writing this post without much enthusiasm, but with a sense of duty. This blog will be 20 years old soon, and though I rarely post here anymore, I owe it some attention. Of course in 2023, "Swift" now means one thing only, Taylor Swift, the billionaire musician. Gone are the days when I was asked if I was related to Jonathan Swift. The pre-eminent cultural Swift is now alive and TIME PERSON OF THE YEAR. There is no point in belabouring the obvious with delay: 2023 was a low-point in the low annals of human history - war, invasion, murder, in too many nations. Hate, division, the collapse of what truth is, exacerbated by advances in AI that may or may not prove apocalyptic, while global warming still seems to threaten the near-future safety of humanity. It's been deeply depressing. The world lost some wonderful poets, actors, musicians, and writers this year, as it often does. Two people I knew and admired greatly, Ian Ferrier and Kevin Higgins, poets and organise
1 comment
Read more