Show notes
"WAVING LIKE NEW"LOOK SHARP! by Joe Jackson (A&M, 1979)In the late 70’s the Punk movement had begun to dissipate, and the emerging Angry Young musicians were engaging more style and sly humor. Similar to his contemporaries Elvis Costello and Graham Parker - both of whom I adored - Joe married inchoate rage with intelligence and taste, and his early albums were irresistible. Look Sharp!, his debut, heralded the arrival of a major new talent, and the iconic cover photo featuring his pointy white shoes turned toward a gleaming shaft of light said it all. As the website Allmusic has stated, this was “the sound of a young man searching for substance in a superficial world,” and he fucking rocked it.By 1982, he had expanded his repertoire to include jazz on the album Night and Day - and with a flaneur’s easy elan he topped the charts handily. Stepping Out from that album became a fixture on 90s radio. Jackson’s expanding “manifest destiny” continued into the realm of the classical music in Symphony #1, for which he won the Grammy for best pop instrumental. The genre that encompassed the many pop oriented styles that emerged after punk rock, often characterized by a humorous approach, was dubbed “New Wave”. (XTC, Devo, and Squeeze, three other quirky favorites, emerged during that time as well). Joe was immersed in Reggae during this period, and that style permeates this recording throughout (check out Fools in Love and Sunday Papers), along with Rockabilly, Soul, and Funk. But, for Joe, that wave of newness was just the beginning in a questing career path that he is still forging to this day. 1. | "One More Time" | 3:152. | "Sunday Papers" | 4:223. | "Is She Really Going Out with Him?" | 3:334. | "Happy Loving Couples" | 3:085. | "Throw It Away" | 2:496. | "Baby Stick Around" | 2:367. | "Look Sharp!" | 3:238. | "Fools in Love" | 4:239. | "(Do the) Instant Mash" | 3:1210. | "Pretty Girls" | 2:5511. | "Got the Time"
