Joe Jackson - Beat Crazy

Not the best for this group

The third album by Joe Jackson with his original band, it just doesn't match up to its predecessors, Look Sharp and I'm the Man. There's some good stuff here, but Joe seems to be trying to get away from the new wave guitar sound of the first 2 albums, but hasn't yet reached what would be his complete departure on Night and Day. Too many songs are neither here nor there. April 23, 2008

Some great songs and some other ones too

After the great "Look Sharp" and the even greater "I'm the Man", Joe Jackson released "Beat Crazy as this 3rd LP. The effort was credited to the Joe Jackson Band and not just Joe and it was a change in direction. There's a reggae influence here and the title track and leadoff track signals the new direction with bass player Graham Maby singing lead.
There are some really great JJ songs here including the title track, "One to One". "Someone Up There" "Biology" and "Fit". There's 5 other cuts here also and they are not up those high standards. Of course, the changes in direction continue to this day. This is not as consistently wonderful as his 2 first LP's but there are some essential JJ tracks here. April 5, 2008

The Joe Jackson Band's 1980 swan song.

"Kids today - they're all the same
All call themselves - some crazy name
All those drugs - they can't be sane
All that noise - affects their brains
And it's such a crime
How they waste their time
They can't get nowhere
They've all gone Beat Crazy!
Beat Crazy!"


Lately I've been revisiting all of Joe Jackson's old albums in anticipation of his upcoming Boulder Theater gig (on May 1, 2008). Long out of print, Beat Crazy was Jackson's third album following Look Sharp!(in 1979) and I'm the Man (also 1979). A&M released all three albums as the Joe Jackson Band, with Jackson on vocals, piano, and harmonica, Gary Sanford on guitar, Graham Maby on bass, and David Houghton on drums. At the time, along with fellow Brits Elvis Costello and Graham Parker, the Joe Jackson Band introduced a "New Wave" sound to the States, and Beat Crazy was the band's last album together until Jackson reunited with Sanford, Maby, and Houghton in 2003 for Volume 4 and a high-energy tour (which I experienced in Denver). The album's memorable setlist includes:

1. Beat Crazy (4:15) (with Graham Maby on lead vocals)
2. One to One (3:22)
3. In Every Dream Home (A Nightmare) (4:30)
4. Evil Eye (3:46)
5. Mad at You (6:02)
6. Crime Don't Pay (4:25)
7. Someone Up There (3:47)
8. Battleground (2:33)
9. Biology (4:31)
10. Pretty Boys (3:41)
11. Fit (4:43)

G. Merritt
February 4, 2008

Finally, the MASTERPIECE is back!

Some years ago I was grieving on Amazon pages about "Beat Crazy" not being in stock. I was hoping then that someone will finally get their senses and re-release it like the rest of Joe Jackson's opus. And not just because of J.J.

This record has a special place in my heart, but besides that "Beat Crazy" still has an interesting sound, moreover - quite unique sound, so I feel tempted to welcome it once again by including the complete lament about previous, "out-of-print," edition written in April 2004.

Enjoy.

"Yeah, really, why exactly is this out of print?

Many lesser albums from all eras are getting deluxe makeovers, but this masterpiece is not even out there in any, even inferior, form. A shame, truly, since, as mentioned elsewhere, this really is Joe Jackson's best work: original, focused, crafty, smart, played to the max, uniquely produced yet firmly rooted in the sound of the - all together very progressive - new wave period.

At the time, not a whole lot has been said about this album. Meanwhile, it has been forgotten and now neglected, but there is still this intriguing, original sound to it that really makes it worth coming back to (and we all hope and pray that will happen one day in a digitally improved, remastered shape).

For years I have been wondering about the inspiration behind "Beat Crazy" and though I was fully aware - not to say thoroughly immersed in - the reggae/new wave connection, I was never sure if Joe Jackson really was so taken by then current sound of Jamaica that he had the urge to express it in this way (all this despite critic Robert Christgau's claim that "Battleground" track is a tribute to no less than Linton Kwesi Johnson, famous reggae poet).

But a few years back - a revelation: I have found out (when Orange Street label released the album) that in 1980, Joe Jackson has produced and played with the rest of the band on Prince Lincoln's "Natural Wild." Lincoln, a lesser-known reggae act, independently produced a handful of, I may say, actually pretty good albums before finding himself in London in the winter of 1980. I don't know by what miracle Joe Jackson walked into Prince Lincoln's sessions, but the results were - and still are - magical. It is distinctively a reggae album, but has a lot of little Joe Jackson traits buried in it: his piano, band's harmonies, Graham Maby's funky bass, Dave Haughton's killer drumming, Gary Sanford's wicked solo guitar and although there were some real reggae players involved in the recording, J.J. Band colored it so fresh that it remarkably stands out as unique reggae production.

All this talk to provide you with a back story and an alternative while you wait for dusted-off reissue of this special album: "Natural Wild" is that missing link and an explanation for the radical sound of "Beat Crazy." Even if you are not a reggae fan you'd appreciate it. And it would paint a different picture of how things looked, rather sounded, once Joe Jackson Band started recording their third album later in 1980.

Mystery solved. Both highly recommended. That is, grab Prince Lincoln now and let's hope "Beat Crazy" won't be long." January 13, 2008

Beating a retreat from rock and roll

Joe Jackson cut two prototype albums for the blossoming new wave movement, but he considered himself a musician and artist. After the success of "Look Sharp" and "I'm The Man," Jackson was getting restless and feeling hemmed in by the cliches of punk, and he made an effort to dynamite his limitations.

It is evident from the very first track that Jackson was out to veer as far left of expectations as possible. Opening with a scream against a beatnik bassline, "Beat Crazy" begins with bass player Graham Maby singing lead. Joe Jackson tried very hard to make this album a "band" effort, and as the liner notes put it, "make sense of rock and roll." He also declares the attempt a failure.

It is easy to see how Jackson used the "failure" of "Beat Crazy" to make the leap to the more sophisticated "Night And Day." In one of his best ballads, "One On One," he deftly cuts the antagonist and himself with great couplets like "You're beautiful when you get mad. Or is that a sexist observation?" It's a far cry from the glibness of "Is She Really Going Out With Him." The music also took on more color, with the jazzy intro to "Crime Don't Pay" taking on a similarity to "Glad" from Traffic's "John Barleycorn Must Die."

"Beat Crazy" suffers from that kind of intersection of desires and directions. The dub effects on "Mad At You" now just sound silly, and as a social statement, "Battleground" is even more stilted then it was in the 80's. Still, it is hard to fault Jackson and his mates for trying to shatter their old walls. Bear in mind that Jackson's next album was the Big Band "Jumpin' Jive," and that he'd jettison the band after "Beat Crazy." That helps to explain the wildness and musical tension that drives the eccentricities of "Beat Crazy."
August 17, 2007

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