Look Sharp!

Music: Beat Crazy - Joe Jackson

The first time I ever heard Joe Jackson's voice was on the morning of June 22, 2004. I was in the intoxicating state between asleep and awake, dreaming some sort of nonsense involving a genderless person singing and strutting through the apartment I was living in at the time.

Always something breaking us in two

I had fallen asleep early in the morning with the television blaring VH1 Classics's 2xTuesday.

The fantasy seemed to extend for minutes, growing more and more vivid with each lyric. I woke up, sat up, only to see Joe Jackson sitting at a piano performing the song that had just haunted my dreamworld.

I immediately hopped onto the Elvis Costello Fans forum (I was the frequent 'troublemaker' on there at the time) and began my research, and in turn the downloading.

As with every article containing either man- Joe Jackson is constantly graded on a scale to Elvis Costello (and both to Graham Parker, though more or less the other way around), simply because the two of them got their start through the New Wave/Punk British invasion of the late 70's. Despite catching their break through the same movement, there is absolutely nothing similar about the two once we hit 1981- EC went off into the world of Country & Western with Almost Blue, then on to the incomparable Imperial Bedroom as Joe Jackson peaked with Night & Day then began his ambitiously eclectic mediocre years.

I must confess, I've always considered Beat Crazy and Get Happy!! a brotherly pair of sibling albums.

Night & Day.

Today, each are in excellent voice, and their pens have only gotten bolder. You can make a case that the greatest songs written by either man were composed post 2000 (Take It Like A Man - Joe Jackson, Episode Of Blonde, Bedlam - Elvis Costello) , proving that the two of them still have more to offer than the infinite number of young musicians they've inspired today (Daryl Palumbo being a possible exception).

Elvis has his Imposters, Joe Jackson has his Joe Jackson Band. We, as listeners, have songs that can create, dictate, and fabricate characters that gyrate in our deep, dreaming sleep.