Joe Jackson - Very Best Of

A selective approach to a very eclectic career

This should really be called The Very Best Of New Wave Joe Jackson. Despite the inclusion of two more recent recordings, from Volume 4, the 2003 reunion with the singer/songwriter’s original backing band, this umpteenth single-disc compendium doesn’t deviate greatly from its predecessors’ emphasis on Jackson’s late 70s/early 80s run of angular, sometimes unlikely hits.

There is, however, no denying the knack for songcraft and intriguing melody that saw Is She Really Going Out With Him?, I’m The Man and their contemporaries make Jackson a brief and rather uneasy rival of Elvis Costello and Graham Parker. Sure enough, the ska-inflected Beat Crazy and fulltilt swing arrangement of Jumpin’ Jive soon revealed that he was keen to move on, although the elegant jazz-pop of 1982 album Night & Day (represented here by three tracks, including Steppin’ Out) would afford one more marriage of artistic ambition and major commercial success.

The story since the mid-80s has – rather like Costello’s, in fact – been one of excursions into more challenging areas and, inevitably, reduced sales. A collection that made sense of the diverse, but often exquisite, music in this later period (see 1994’s Night Music for plentiful evidence) really would be something special.

Universal | 9842273

Reviewed by David Davies
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