The Joe Jackson Band : Beat Crazy
On October 24 The Joe Jackson Band released Beat Crazy, featuring the most colorful album cover of the year and 11 songs, some tackling racism and homophobia. None of the singles charted and the album failed to keep up with sales of the previous releases Look Sharp! and I'm The Man.
Joe Jackson would dismiss the band after this album, keeping the phenomenal bassist Graham Maby around as much as possible, while exploring a wide variety of musical styles.
Looking back, Jackson has said Beat Crazy didn't really work:
The stereotypical difficult third album, in which we tried to change the formula a bit without quite knowing how. It's darker than the first two, and the reggae influence is more pronounced. There's some good stuff on it (I especially like the title track and 'Biology') but it’s not quite the triumphant swan song of this band.
I bought his when it came out and returning to it these many years later I think the problem, aside from the repeated use of the N-word in "Battleground", is the songs are too long. "Mad At You" runs over six minutes in length and many of the others could have been edited by a minute as well.
The Smash Hits review was positive:
Robert Christgau gave the album a grade of B, writing:
Just in case Jackson is about to turn into last year's model for good, I thought I'd mention that I kind of like his poorest-selling album. The melodies escape me as usual, but the beat is getting tougher and more resilient and the lyrics are at their best. Granted, the social comment and romantic reflections still sound smug at times, but anybody who can justify a dedication to Linton Kwesi Johnson ("Battleground") and say something new about fooling-around-on-the-road ("Biology") hasn't thrown it in yet.
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