🎵 AotW AOTW: Joe Jackson - LOOK SHARP! (SP-4743)

[LPJim]

Joe Jackson
LOOK SHARP!
A&M SP-4743

SIDE ONE

One More Time - 3:15
Sunday Papers - 4:22
Is She Really Going Out With Him? - 3:33
Happy Loving Couples - 3:08
Throw it Away - 2:49


SIDE TWO

Baby Stick Around - 2:36
Look Sharp - 3:23
Fools in Love - 4:23
(Do the) Instant Mash - 3:12
Pretty Girls - 2:55
Got the Time - 2:55


Joe Jackson - vocals, piano, harmonica, writer of all songs
Gary Sanford - guitar
Graham Maby - bass
David Houghton - drums

Produced by David Kershenbaum

Released in April 1979
Peak Billboard Top 200 position: #20

Reissued on CD; the 2001 edition includes 2 bonus tracks:

Don't Ask Me 2:43 and You Got the Fever 3:27

Please visit Joe Jackson's official site:


www.joejackson.com


JB

 

[Rudy]

This is one to seek out the original CD pressing--despite the bonus tracks, the newer version is brickwalled.

Also recommended: "Aftermath," which is the live recording of songs following the tour for "Volume 4," the album which reunites the quartet. A few from "Look Sharp" are covered, with some new life breathed into them.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

I've never been a big Joe Jackson fan, except for the song "Steppin' Out" (from NIGHT AND DAY) which I consider pure pop perfection.

This album, besides the fact I didn't like the music too much, also has one of my least favorite album covers of all time. It got a lot of "best of the year" acclaim when it was new, which I could never understand.

 

[Rudy]

Mike--we will have to agree to disagree. I think it's one of his best and most solid albums all the way through. And more impressive seeing it was his recording debut under his own name. It is a different take on the "angry young man" punk rock style of music that was popular at that point in time, but was filtered through a three-minute pop song format. In other words, he could still deliver angst, but also load it up with some catchy hooks. The following albums like I'm The Man and Beat Crazy continue along a similar path, although the latter explores more of the reggae backbeat and has a much darker tone to it. Volume 4 (the original quartet reunion album) is thematically more like the first two albums, but you can hear how JJ has grown as a composer. The songs still have that cynical "bite" he had back on Look Sharp, but the melodies and harmonies are a lot more developed and explored. The song "Quite Grey" just floors me each time I hear it...one of the most scathing break-up/divorce songs I've ever heard. It's as good as anything on Look Sharp.

I won't discount other favorites of mine, though. Night And Day is also up there in my book--it captures a totally different attitude and atmosphere, but has a couple of "clinker" songs in it that don't work ("Real Men" and "TV Age"). Mike's Murder continues the same idea--well worth finding. Body And Soul is demo disc material around here, both in LP and CD form, and is also one of his better albums.

I will say his music (and voice) are an acquired taste. One has to be a fan of JJ overall to really get into all of his music, since his style has varied so much.

 

[AM Matt]

The song "One More Time" was used as a Taco Bell commercial 2 years ago!! Matt Clark Sanford, MI

 

[Dave]

"Is She Really Going Out With Him?" spurred the string of hits Jackson had... Funny how it precedes "Happy Loving Couples"...

Night & Day was in the slew of records our family friend gave me (which included Cheap Trick Live At Buddokan, Bee Gees Children Of The World,Paul Anka's Painter, Peter Frampton I'm In You, and quite a lot more)... I think I'd only played "Steppin' Out", which I loved the video for, but decided that LP really wasn't a keeper...

Don't forget, some copies of Look Sharp came w/ a PIN!


Dave

 

[Rudy]

Say you're leavin'...say goodbye! (To your innards, if you eat Taco Bell. )

 

[LPJim]

I think the 'pin' was a feature on the two ten-inch LPs version of 'LOOK SHARP' rather than the standard twelve-inch.

JB

 

[Rudy]

I have the 2-10" version of this album...and still have the pin attached. I don't recall if I saw any of the standard LPs with the pin or not.

My one regret here was that A&M also put out "Regatta de Blanc" (The Police) on a 2-10" set, and I was always on the fence about buying it since I had the 12" LP. I should have just bought it. I wonder if it also had a custom label like Look Sharp had. (And for that matter, I wonder if the original LP pressings of Look Sharp had custom labels, or just the standard A&M.)

 

[Rudy]

Yes on The Police...

Now I really wish I'd gotten it.

There is a 2-10" of Look Sharp on eBay right now for $10.49, two bids. Someone should grab it!

http://cgi.ebay.com/JOE-JACKSON-Look-Sharp-Sealed-1979-2-X-10-LP-Button-/120694024950

 

[A&Mguyfromwayback]

I don't know why, it's just a picture of a pair of shoes, but I always loved this cover. Something about it sums up the era for me in an odd way.....

 

[Mr Bill]

One fine piece of pop perfection. JJ's first two LPs were clearly in the "punk" vein though not nearly has harsh as, say, Iggy, Sex Pistols, Damned, Buzzcocks etc. More like an edgy Dave Edmonds or Nick Lowe. I remember when Night & Day came out with the AC (Adult Contemporary) hits "Steppin' Out" and others and seeing an elderly couple in the music store looking at JJ's earlier albums and saying, "Oh look! He has other albums!" I can only imagine the looks on their face as they spun this one, I'm the Man or the vastly uncategorizable Beat Crazy...

--Mr Bill

 

[Rudy]

Yowza, no kidding...Beat Crazy really was a step away from the first two. It is challenging for sure, and I have a sense that he was already starting to outgrow the whole "angry young man" shtick and expanding what he could do with a rock quartet format. And of course, he dumped that entirely on his next album.

At least if those shoppers had picked up Jumpin' Jive, it would not have been such a stretch! (I wish A&M would have gone retro and put this one on an original cream/brown 12-o'clock A&M label!)

Would love to see some 180g reissues of his A&M albums.

 

[Mr Bill]

True dat! Beat Crazy, with it's ode to Beatnik/Be-Bop stylings works very well as a transition record between the "young angry male" Look Sharp + I'm The Man and the jive/swing-inspired Jumpin' Jive...

Fortunately Jackson quickly developed a musical identity all his own despite never breaking into the mainstream as well as some (Madonna, Rundgren, Sting and a few others come to mind). Same can be said of Squeeze, Lani Hall, The Cramps, and others who (despite a devoted fan following) are not household names...

--Mr Bill

 

[Rudy]

They all may be better off outside the mainstream.

I just listened to four of the five Police SACDs (all except the first album)...took me back 30 years! "Ghost" was huge while we were in high school. The "hipsters" among us liked The Police; the burnouts were the ones into Led Zep, Kansas, AC/DC, Santana and especially J. Geils. I think I'd just gotten into the IRS stuff during the end of high school but, back then, nobody knew who these bands were. Still remember having an argument with the girl that sat behind me, who insisted the band was called, "Echoes and the BunnymAn." *sigh*

 

[CherryStreet]

the burnouts were the ones into Led Zep, Kansas, AC/DC, Santana and especially J. Geils. I

We moved from "burnouts" to calling them "caves".

Short for "cavemen"...get it?

Rood, what did you call it when it snowed and you grabbed on to a car's bumper and hitched a ride?

 

[AM Matt]

I just heard the title track to "Look Sharp!" on CIDR-FM (known as 93.9 The River) in Windsor, Ontario a few weeks back while I was at the Great Lakes Shopping Mall at Auburn Hills, Michigan. Matt Clark Sanford, MI

 

[Rudy]

the burnouts were the ones into Led Zep, Kansas, AC/DC, Santana and especially J. Geils. I

We moved from "burnouts" to calling them "caves".

Short for "cavemen"...get it?

Rood, what did you call it when it snowed and you grabbed on to a car's bumper and hitched a ride?

Bumper hitching! And that was back when cars had real chrome bumpers you could hold onto. I never got into it, but used to watch the rough-house kids down the street do it all the time. It also helped that they didn't plow our side streets in the winter--we had ruts, and the ice frozen at the bottom of those were perfect for bumper hitching.

 

[Rudy]

I just heard the title track to "Look Sharp!" on CIDR-FM (known as 93.9 The River) in Windsor, Ontario a few weeks back while I was at the Great Lakes Shopping Mall at Auburn Hills, Michigan. Matt Clark Sanford, MI

I am not even aware of what The River plays these days. Cool they played this song, though! CIMX (89X) rarely played JJ back when I used to listen (mid 90s).

 

[CherryStreet]

the burnouts were the ones into Led Zep, Kansas, AC/DC, Santana and especially J. Geils. I

We moved from "burnouts" to calling them "caves".

Short for "cavemen"...get it?

Rood, what did you call it when it snowed and you grabbed on to a car's bumper and hitched a ride?

Bumper hitching! And that was back when cars had real chrome bumpers you could hold onto. I never got into it, but used to watch the rough-house kids down the street do it all the time. It also helped that they didn't plow our side streets in the winter--we had ruts, and the ice frozen at the bottom of those were perfect for bumper hitching.

We also called it "bumpering". People in Illinois called it, "skitching" and a friend from Boston called it something completely different. Though at the moment I can't recall what it is?

 

[Rudy]

It was definitely "bumper hitching" in our area. We used to get lectured at school about it.