Joe Jackson - I'm The Man (1979)

Note: the CD I listened to was the 2001 reissue with a bonus track.

Despite the terrible cover photo, this album fits in somewhere among my top 3 or 4 Joe Jackson albums. (Night And Day is far and away at the top of that list, but the others vary depending on my ever-changing moods.) In any case, it contains 3 of my favorite Jackson songs: the title track, It's Different For Girls, and On Your Radio. Jackson's own thoughts on the album as found on Jackson's website:

This is really Part Two of ‘Look Sharp’ – it was released less than a year later. I don’t know how I even had the time to write and record a slightly more mature record, but I think it is, and the best of the first three.

I'll agree, especially with that last part. A fun new wave rocker that's an amalgam of power pop, '60s R&B, reggae, punk, and maybe even jazz, played with minimal instrumentation.

Press of the time:

• High Fidelity: "as brilliant as its predecessor"
• Smash Hits (7½ out of 10): "Good album - investigate."
• CashBox: "one of the most accessible and commercially viable new wave rockers around"
• Record World: "Jackson shows off added sophistication (albeit anger) in his lyrics."
• Record Mirror (++++): "offering confirmation and extensions of the man's validity"
• Rolling Stone: "Overall, the music, though it remains derivative and broadly stroked, is more forceful and zesty than Look Sharp!'s"
• Stereo Review: "it's a superb album"
• Robert Christgau (C+): "Oh yeah?"

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard Top 200: #22
• CashBox: #25
• Rolling Stone: #22

Tracks: My favorite cut is It's Different For Girls, closely followed by the other two songs mentioned above. Also good are Kinda Kute, Get That Girl, and Friday. I'm not much of a fan of Geraldine And John.

Bonus track: A live cover of Chuck Berry's Come On, recorded at Hollywood's Whisky a Go Go on Saturday, May 12, 1979. It was the b-side to the It's Different For Girls single and appeared on the 1979 A&M sampler album, Propaganda.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: I didn't have this album back in '79, but somehow I heard the title track on the radio and was immediately hooked. The single was listed in the December 15, 1979 issue of Billboard (p. 70) so that must have happened around that time. The single failed to chart in the US. If only I had been bothered to seek out whose song it was.

I read Jackson's autobiography, A Cure for Gravity, back when it was released in 2000 and, if I recall correctly, was greatly disappointed he chose to end it after the recording/release of Look Sharp. So no mention of I'm The Man.

Previously revisited for the blog:

Rain (2008)	Big World (1986)
Volume 4 (2003)	Body and Soul (1984)
Night And Day II (2000)	Night and Day (1982)
Tucker Soundtrack (1988)	Look Sharp! (1979)