As a decade, the 1980s are full of what ifs\u2014what if Ronald Reagan had stuck to acting? What if Led Zeppelin had rehearsed before reuniting for Live Aid? And what if trend-chasing producers hadn\u2019t conspired to make so many albums issued in the \u201980s sound like they were recorded using instruments made of aluminum foil?<\/p>\n
That distinctly crinkly, treble-all-the-way-up sound was the first thing I noticed about Joe Jackson\u2019s 1989 album Blaze Of Glory<\/i>, which I picked up on the recommendation of a social media acquaintance with an affinity for visionary, boundary-breaking musicians. I enjoyed Joe\u2019s late \u201970s New Wave stuff a lot, all that spiky energy and angular guitar riffs. Then he dipped a toe in reggae (1980\u2019s Beat Crazy<\/i>) before diving headlong into big-band and swing music (1981\u2019s Jumpin\u2019 Jive<\/i>), moves that took guts and vision, both of which Joe has always displayed in abundance. When he next went smooth and sophisticated for Night And Day<\/i> it worked shockingly well; jazz-club Joe is one cool cat.<\/p>\n
In time I moved on, though, with the result that prior to picking up this album the only track I\u2019d ever heard from it was the luminous single \u201cNineteen Forever,\u201d courtesy of its appearance on 1996\u2019s Greatest Hits<\/i>. Let\u2019s weigh the pros and cons of this typically adventurous outing from the ever-mercurial Mr. Jackson.<\/p>\n
The main pro is just that: it\u2019s adventurous; it takes chances. For one thing, singer-songwriter-bandleader Jackson doesn\u2019t even sing lead on all of these tunes; he shares lead vocals with various bandmates on four tracks (\u201cTomorrow\u2019s World,\u201d \u201cMe And You (Against The World),\u201d \u201cRant And Rave\u201d and \u201cDiscipline\u201d) and hands the mic fully over to frequent harmony vocalist Drew Barfield for \u201cSentimental Thing.\u201d It\u2019s both a generous move and one that fosters variety in terms of vocal sound on the album. \u201cMe And You\u201d is where it feels like it works the best, a bold and punchy number that manages to overcome the production with pure musical flair.<\/p>\n
Another plus is that his lyrics are typically eclectic and sharp-eyed, from the thrumming sci-fi narrative \u201cTomorrow\u2019s World,\u201d to the acerbic sociological commentary \u201cDown To London,\u201d to the title track, a merciless takedown of the fame machine. As if to further prove that he has abolished all rules and boundaries, he includes a punchy instrumental, the limber, cheeky, Greek-inflected \u201cAcropolis Now.\u201d The heart of the album lies in the pairing of the snappy, horn-and-piano driven, clearly autobiographical \u201cRant And Rave\u201d with the tart, hook-filled, generally gorgeous \u201cNineteen Forever.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the con side, the album\u2019s main flaw is the already-mentioned \u201980s production, with all its splooshy cymbals and egregious synth tones, but it\u2019s not the only one. Good for Joe for being a gracious bandleader and sharing the mic, but the fact is no one bought this album to hear his backup singers. They\u2019re all good, but none of them is Joe, and for all his idiosyncrasies\u2014check that, because of all his idiosyncrasies\u2014as a vocalist, Jackson is instantly charismatic. You want to hear how he\u2019s going to tackle each line of these songs, what spin he\u2019s going to put on them, and when someone else takes over, that same level of interest and engagement just isn\u2019t there. When you combine both of the above flaws on a song like the ironically undisciplined \u201cDiscipline,\u201d the results can be something of a train wreck.<\/p>\n
Thankfully, \u201cDiscipline\u201d and the similarly overcooked \u201cEvil Empire\u201d are at least partially redeemed by closer \u201cThe Human Touch,\u201d which features the return of sensitive, yearning Joe while incorporating a bass motif from opening cut \u201cTomorrow\u201d late in the song to accentuate the feeling of completing a musical circle. It\u2019s a compelling cut even if the background vocalists oddly sound like they were across the room from their mics while singing their parts.<\/p>\n
The best and worst thing about Joe Jackson is that he profoundly doesn\u2019t care what anyone else thinks; Joe is gonna be Joe. That means he sometimes makes the unusual choice just because he can, rather than because it\u2019s a good one. But it\u2019s all part of Jackson\u2019s art; dating all the way back to his punky New Wave origins, his entire musical persona has been fueled by defiance. The end result here is an album with notable highs and lows. While \u201cNineteen Forever\u201d remains a gorgeous single, on the whole Blaze Of Glory<\/i> is a hit-and-miss affair\u2014worth picking up, but not one of his best, for this listener at least.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":34449,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6542],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-46288","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-joe-jackson","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46288"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}