A Lightweight No More

"THE NEW JOE JACKSON ALBUM!" screams the sticker from the demented cartoon-figured cover of Beat Crazy. But it doesn't quite explain itself; this isn't Joe Jackson's new album, it's the album by the New Joe Jackson. Jackson must have swallowed a bottle of ludes after I'm the Man and, while recovering, composed Beat Crazy. Nothing else could explain such a major departure in style, lyrics, and sound. Casting away his previous power-pop label, Jackson casts himself in the reggae/innovative rock mold.

A primal scream opens the record, and from then on, Jackson emerges as a more affected and effective persona than the "Spiv" of his first two efforts. Those concentrated on a poppy guitar, steady beat, and musical hooks, with songs about women, the working class, and the media. Suddenly, Jackson's oft-avowed affection for reggae has taken over. Graham Maby, one of rock's most melodic and dextrous bassists, assumes center stage, as Jackson acknowledges by allowing him to sing the title track. And Maby holds it well--the bass lines are entrancing, polished, and danceable.

Jackson's lyrics have become even more pessimistic. He was content to rip apart "Sunday Papers" on his first 1.p., but here he explores deeper social problems. Misfits, racial tensions, and uncontrollable fate, all these have been boiling under his pop songs, but he had to recreate his musical genre to find proper release for them.

In "Battleground," the most radical departure, the musicians tinkle in the background and Jackson talks through the following gripping scene:

White niggers out dancing on the floor tonight

Theband'snotgoodbutthebeatseemsright

Theband'sallblackandthefloor'sallwhite

Clenching fists unite and fight

Rock against Racism rules tonight

But in the real world

No one rules.

The ominous voice--speaking rythmically, not singing--drives home a point too ominous to sing.

JACKSON'S VISION is of decay and chaos. Even when he touches subjects more familiar to him, he bites. "Mad at You" offers not the singsong despair of his hit, "Is She Really Going Out With Him?" but a guttural snarl that he lashes at his lover:

When you're fixing your makeup

You know you take too long

And when you mix me a drink up

You know you mix it too strong...

But honey look at your eyes

You got the innocent eyes

Always the innocent eyes

And now you're asking me why

I'm mad at you

MAD AT YOU!

And where the song would have ended on an earlier album, it instead breaks into a two-minute viciously danceable jam, and then Jackson's accusing, echoing voice returns amidst a barrage of percussion. In this mini-masterpiece everything that his pop promised, his reggae delivers with a vengeance.

As with I'm the Man, the songs on Beat Crazy form an almost unbroken whole; a tune hardly has the chance to fade before another sneaks in. He perfects his delivery on "One to One". The ballad begins with a single organ chord, grows into a piano piece on loss of individuality, and recedes to its original chord. Thus, without breaking his train of musical thought, Jackson draws us into his musical continuum.

The new, deeper style improves so much on the "old Joe Jackson" that his one left over from those days, "Pretty Boys," (also available on the Times Square soundtrack) falls flat. Even the theme is hackneyed: beautiful people succeed, uglies don't. He follows "Pretty Boys" with "Fit", a far superior attack on society's selectivity. In "Fit," he defends transsexuals and mulattos as examples of the individuals that 'free' society stigmatizes, and reassures the average citizen:

But don't cry--if the people in your street

Lead a life--that's more or less complete

Little problems every day, little problems go away

Kid yourself you're fighting for life

Kid yourself you're fighting for love

But maybe in some other lifetime

You won't fit

And if you don't fit

You're not fit for nothing at all.

The reggae tune and sarcastic lyrics combine to assault both the new punk wave he couldn't tackle and the power pop which threatened to box him in. Between the two, Jackson has staked out new musical territory to accompany his apocalyptic vision of English society. Even when his lyrics border on the ridiculous, he can still harness them in a deeper and more soulful voice. "Someone Up There" does not like him, belying the suggestive title. Jackson finds he cannot alter fate, nor find a rational explanation for his girl's departure. But instead of letting the cliched idea and danceable guitar riff carry the song to oblivion, Jackson--the producer (for the first time)--fades out the music and leaves his voice up front, wailing, "Oh no...oh no...oh no." With the same two words, he laments and attacks God's impassivity, and realizes his loss of love.

THE FIRST two albums made this one possible. A group could not start out this tight or knowledgeable, and the power pop background enabled the band to delve into the new syncopations and melodies. Jackson now tries to write off his days as a "Spiv" rocker, but they remain at the core of the layered sound and cynical vision he now emotes.

This album will either disorient or enlighten Jackson's old fans, and ought to attract some aesthetes who had dismissed him as a lightweight; he has grown as a poet and musician. The idols in his world are no longer the women he loses; nor are they the misfits or the blacks and whites battling for a nonexistent ideal. Instead, he praises the kids who have gone 'beat crazy'. By living in music, dressing as they please, and ignoring the world's attempts to involve them in World War III, they prove to be the only one pursuing attainable (if limited) goals. Thanks to Jackson's persistence in delineating his new Rock and Roll, we have a new view of the man, a new field in the realm of pop music, and a new realization of the harsh world around us.