To the music, Joe Jackson's Look Sharp cover is number 22 on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 greatest album covers of all time. How nice, and i still own exactly the same model shoes be it in black. The album didnt do that much in the UK initially and through his career Jackson has been more popular in the States. He quickly followed up his debut with I'm the man..bit to fast for the slower US market but together these 70 min make for a great start of his career, he added Beat Crazy a year later and then veered off into new directions. The Only Ones , like Joy Division made a much larger impact on the music scene than what one would expect from releasing just a couple of hours of music. Even Serpents Shine hasn't just an awesome cover, it's the highlight of the Only Ones career even though it didnt have a hit.. I added some .. Unknown Pleasures turned out to be a bleak and hollow sound for the nihilistic post punkers looking for direction and confirmation of "No Future". Well Ian Curtis left early, unable to cope with his epileptic attacks on top of all that. Unknown Pleasures is a classic album and like everything he participated in, his death gave it a larger than life aura, one thats been commercialy exploited for 25 years now.
The Specials managed to distill all the anger, disenchantment, and bitterness of the day straight into their music add to that Leadman Jerry Dammers insights creating and styling his own Two Tone label, the fire was so intense that the whole ska beat scene lost momentum within 2 years, and after the Specials released their loungy follow up they broke apart into Special AkA where Dammers freed Nelson Mandela and afterwards threw in the towel. Terry Hall, Neville Staples and Lynval Golding formed .Fun Boy Three, scored some hits but after a second album dissolved.
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Joe Jackson - Look Sharp ! ( 79 ^ 83mb)
Joe Jackson (born David Ian Jackson, 11 August 1954) was a sickly child, afflicted with asthma, first diagnosed when he was three and producing attacks that lasted into his twenties. Prevented from playing sports, he turned to books and eventually music. At 11, he began taking violin lessons, later studying timpani and oboe at school. His parents got him a secondhand piano when he was in his early teens, and he began taking lessons, soon deciding that he wanted to be a composer when he grew up.
From the age of sixteen he played in bars, in 1972, he passed an advanced "S" level exam in music that entitled him to a grant to study music, and he was accepted at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Rather than moving to the city, he spent his grant money on equipment and commuted several days a week. However Jackson did not like the prospect of being a serious composer, and moved towards pop and rock. Jackson's first band was Edward Bear, later renamed Arms and Legs, they dissolved in 1976 after two unsuccessful singles. Although he was still known as David Jackson while in Arms & Legs, it was around this time that Jackson picked up the nickname "Joe", based on his perceived resemblance to the puppet character Joe 90
.Joe Jackson, as he now called himself, then spent some time in the cabaret circuit to make money to record his own demos.
In 1978 a David Kershenbaum ( A&R) heard his tape, and got him signed to A&M Records. The album Look Sharp! was recorded straight away. October 78 saw the release of his first JJ single "is she really going out with him ?" It flopped. January 79 hhis debut album Look Sharp was released, again largely unnoticed in the UK, however in the States it got picked up and when Is she really going out with him was released as a single there the album went gold, on such strong US feedback things picked up strongly for Joe in the UK aswell.
Meanwhile, Jackson toured more or less continually, playing dates in Continental Europe in June and then back in the U.K. through August before returning to North America. But he had found the time and inspiration to craft a quick follow-up to Look Sharp!, and his second LP, I'm the Man, was released on October 5. That was a little too soon for the U.S. market, where Look Sharp! had not yet exhausted its run, and while the album made the Top 40, it was a relative sales disappointment, with the single "It's Different for Girls" failing to enter the Hot 100. The story was different in the U.K., however, where I'm the Man made the Top 20 and "It's Different for Girls" reached the Top Five. Critically, the album was considered a continuation of Look Sharp!, an opinion shared by Jackson himself.
The Joe Jackson Band was very successful and toured extensively. After the breakup of the band, Jackson took a break and recorded an album of old-style swing and blues tunes, Jumpin' Jive, featuring songs of Cab Calloway, Lester Young, Glenn Miller, and most prominently, Louis Jordan. Jackson went through more personal changes over the next year. He and his wife divorced, and he moved to New York City, where, true to form, he began to immerse himself in new musical genres, particularly attracted to salsa and the classic songwriting styles of Gershwin and Cole Porter. The result was Night and Day, released in June 1982, Jackson's first album to put his keyboard playing at the center of his music. Jackson would call New York home for the next twenty years.
Jackson returned to the studio and emerged in March 1984 with Body & Soul, an album with a cover photograph showing him clutching a saxophone in the style of the 1950s LP covers of Blue Note Records. The disc inside was a follow-up to Night and Day in style, however, with a bit more of an R&B tilt, and it was another commercial success After more extensive touring Joe took 18 moths before recording Big World (86) which was basicly a live album as it was directly cut from a theatre performances. The instrumental "Will Power" set the stage for things to come later, but before he left pop behind he put out two more cerebral and celebratory albums, Blaze of Glory and Laughter & Lust. For some years he drifted away from the pop style, going on to be signed by Sony Classical in 1997, which released his Symphony No. 1 in 1999 for which he received a Grammy Award.
Having released only semi-classical works on his last three recordings, Jackson was thought to have abandoned pop/rock music completely, but that proved not to be true. The early years of the 21st century found him in a flurry of activity, much of it returning him to the pop music realm. In June 2000, Sony Classical, issued Summer in the City: Live in New York, an album drawn from an August 1999 concert that featured him playing piano and singing, backed only by Maby and drummer Gary Burke. Four months later came Night and Day II, a new set of songs in the spirit of his most popular recording. Touring to promote the album in Europe and North America from November to April 2001, Jackson recorded the concert CD Two Rainy Nights: Live in the Northwest (The Official Bootleg), released in January 2002.
Later in 2002, Jackson surprised longtime fans by reuniting with the original members of the Joe Jackson Band, Graham Maby, Gary Sanford, and Dave Houghton, to record a new studio album, Volume 4 (the first three volumes having been Look Sharp!, I'm the Man, and Beat Crazy), released by Restless/Rykodisc in March 2003, and go out on a world tour running through September 2003 that resulted in the live album Afterlife, issued in March 2004. His latest album, Rain still awaits official release in 2008, Jackson's last time on record was when he reunited most of his original band for the 'Volume 4' album. The title was a reference to the number of albums the band had made together over 25 years. 'Rain' could be considered Volume 5. It features Jackson on vocals and keyboards, with original Joe Jackson Band members Graham Maby (bass/vocals) and Dave Houghton (drums/vocals).
01 - One More Time (3:17)
02 - Sunday Papers (4:18)
03 - Is She Really Going Out With Him? (3:34)
04 - Happy Loving Couples (3:07)
05 - Throw It Away (2:48)
06 - Baby Stick Around (2:36)
07 - Look Sharp! (3:19)
08 - Fools In Love (4:21)
09 - (Do The) Instant Mash (3:10)
10 - Pretty Girls (2:53)
11 - Got The Time (2:51)
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Joe Jackson - I'm The Man ( 79 ^ 84mb)
01 - On Your Radio (4:00)
02 - Geraldine And John (3:13)
03 - Kinda Kute (3:30)
04 - It's Different For Girls (3:40)
05 - I'm The Man (3:56)
06 - The Band Wore Blue Shirts (5:04)
07 - Don't Wanna Be Like That (3:41)
08 - Amateur Hour (4:03)
09 - Get That Girl (3:01)
10 - Friday (3:31)
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Only Ones - Even Serpents Shine( 79 ^ 99mb)
The Only Ones were originally formed in August 1976 in South London by Peter Perrett. Perrett had been recording demos since 1973, and in late 1975 was introduced to guitarist John Perry as a temporary bass guitar player. (The guitarist at that time was Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze). Perry wanted to concentrate on playing guitar, so by August 1976 he and Perrett then found drummer Mike Kellie (ex-Spooky Tooth); and bassist Alan Mair who previously had huge success with The Beatstalkers
Led by the raffish and slightly scuzzy romance-obsessed Peter Perrett, the Only Ones were one of the punk era's most underrated bands. Singing his intelligently crafted pop songs in a semi-tuneful whine of a voice and backed by a band that effectively combined youthful exuberance with gracefully aging veteran backing . Perrett was an astute chronicler of the vagaries of modern, dysfunctional love. Despite a career that lasted from 1978-1981 and one certifiable "hit" song to their credit (the brilliant "Another Girl, Another Planet"), the Only Ones became the archetypal contenders that never broke big, despite assurances from fans and critics that they couldn't miss.
Although they split up in 1981 after only three records, the Only Ones, due in large part to "Another Girl, Another Planet," became more influential than one would have guessed. Looking at the number of Only Ones releases over the past decade (a half-dozen at least) and you soon realize that a significant cult surrounding the band grew after their breakup. Ironically, it was the posthumous release of the sessions for John Peel's BBC show that, more than any of the proper studio releases, accurately displayed the muscle and smarts of this fine band. There have been many rumors surrounding Perrett's life after the Only Ones, many of them involving an alleged heroin addiction. Perrett did continue to record and release solo projects during the ' 80s, including a project known as the One in the mid-'90s.
The band reformed in 2007 following the band's biggest hit "Another Girl, Another Planet" being used in a Vodafone ad campaign in 2006. They completed a small UK tour in June and more dates are planned for the rest of the year.. They appeared at All Tomorrow's Parties festival in Minehead, England on 27 April and played at the Connect Music Festival in Scotland on the 1 September. With positive press and all..a live dvd is coming up and they are working on a new album at the moment.
01 - From Here To Eternity (3:04)
02 - Flaming Torch (2:18)
03 - You've Got To Pay (2:44)
04 - No Solution (2:21)
05 - Inbetween (3:53)
06 - Out There In The Night (3:00)
07 - Curtains For You (4:17)
08 - Programme (2:08)
09 - Someone Who Cares (3:08)
10 - Miles From Nowhere (3:42)
11 - Instrumental (3:52)
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12 - Why Don't You Kill Yourself (2:45)
13 - No Peace For The Wicked (2:52)
14 - Another Girl, Another Planet (3:02)
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The Specials - The Specials (79 ^ 98mb)
The band was originally formed in Coventry, in 1977, as the Coventry Automatics and later the Special A.K.A. by songwriter/keyboardist Jerry Dammers, with Terry Hall (vocals), Lynval Golding (guitar, vocals), Neville Staples (vocals, percussion), Roddy Radiation (guitar), Sir Horace Gentleman (bass), and John Bradbury (drums).
Dammers started his own 2-Tone label, named for its multiracial agenda and after the two-tone tonic suits favored by the like-minded mods of the '60s. The Dammers-designed logos, based in ' 60s pop art with black and white checks, gave the label an instantly identifiable look. Dammers' eye for detail and authenticity also led to the band adopting ' 60s-period rude-boy outfits. The band released the "Gangsters" single, which reached the U.K. Top Ten. Soon after the movement was in full swing. Over the next several months, 2-Tone enjoyed hits by similar-sounding bands, such as Madness, the (English) Beat, and the Selecter. Late in 1979, the band released its landmark self-titled debut album, produced by Elvis Costello, where The Specials managed to distill all the anger, disenchantment, and bitterness of the day straight into their music.They followed with several 2-Tone package tours and a live EP, Too Much Too Young that track, a pro-contraception song, was banned by the BBC but still reached the number one spot in the U.K.
At this time, the band switched musical directions, releasing album number two, More Specials, with a new neo-lounge persona. Signs indicated that the movement was fading, nevertheless, a film documenting the 2-Tone package tours, Dance Craze, as well as its companion album, saw considerable success. The Specials released the timely "Ghost Town" single in 1981 amid race-related unemployment riots in Brixton and Liverpool. The single jumped to number one, but the band was falling apart. Hall, Staples, and Golding left to form Fun Boy Three, leaving the band without its trademark voice. Dammers held on, reverting back to the old name, Special A.K.A., and enlisted a new vocalist, Stan Campbell. After several years, they returned with In the Studio in 1984. They managed a few hits with "Racist Friend" and "Free Nelson Mandella," but the album stiffed. The band's final single, "What I Like Most About You Is Your Girlfriend," failed to break the British Top 40. Dammers dissolved the unit, pursuing political causes such as Artists Against Apartheid.
Shortly after the official breakup, various members of the band joined up with other bandless ska revivalists (English Beat, etc.) to form a touring unit named Special Beat. By the mid-'90s, in response to the third wave ska revival, a Dammers-less version of the Specials reappeared with a series of shameful cash-in albums: Today's Specials (1996,) Guilty Til Proved Innocent! (1998,) and Conquering Ruler (2002.)
01 - A Message To You Rudy (2:52)
02 - Do The Dog (2:09)
03 - It's Up To You (3:23)
04 - Nite Klub (3:21)
05 - Doesn't Make It Alright (3:24)
06 - Concrete Jungle (3:18)
07 - Too Hot (3:09)
08 - Monkey Man (2:44)
09 - (Dawning Of A) New Era (2:24)
10 - Blank Expression (2:43)
11 - Stupid Marriage (3:48)
12 - Too Much Too Young (2:15)
13 - Gangsters (2:44)
14 - Little Bitch (2:31)
15 - You're Wondering Now (2:34)
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Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures (79 ^ 99mb)
Joy Division formed in 1976, originally named Warsaw (reference to "Warszawa" by David Bowie)., the band consisted of Ian Curtis (vocals and guitar), Bernard Sumner (guitar and keyboards),[1] Peter Hook (bass guitar and vocals), and Stephen Morris (drums and percussion). To avoid confusion with the London punk band Warsaw Pakt, the band renamed themselves Joy Division in late 1977, borrowing their new name from the prostitution wing of a Nazi concentration camp in the 1965 novel The House of Dolls. During 78 they extended their local presence and self-released their debut EP An Ideal for Living in June 1978, which caught the attention Tony Wilson and thus they hooked up with Factory, late 78 Curtis suffered a severe epileptic attack. In spite of that, Joy Division's career continued to progress. Curtis appeared on the front cover of the 13 January 1979 issue of the NME and that same month the band recorded their first radio session for BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel.
In April 1979, the band began recording their debut album Unknown Pleasures. Producer Martin Hannett contributed significantly to the final sound. The band initially disliked the "spacious, atmospheric sound" of the album, which did not reflect their more aggressive live sound.Unknown Pleasures was released in June and sold through its initial pressing of 10,000 copies. It turned Factory Records into a true business and a "revolutionary force". In January 1980, Joy Division set out on a European tour. While the tour was difficult, Curtis only experienced two grand mal seizures in the two months preceding the tour's final date. Martin Hannett again producing, the band recorded their second album Closer in March . Lack of sleep and long hours destabilized Curtis' epilepsy and his seizures became almost uncontrollable.Curtis would often have seizures during shows, which left him feeling ashamed and depressed.
Joy Division were due to begin their first American tour in May 1980. At the time, Curtis' relationship with his wife Deborah Curtis (the couple married in 1975 as teenagers) was collapsing. Contributing factors were his ill health, and his relationship with a young Belgian woman named Annik Honoré whom he had met on European tour. The evening before Joy Division were to embark on the American tour, Curtis returned to his home in Macclesfield in order to talk to his estranged wife. While he first asked Deborah Curtis to drop the divorce suit, he eventually told her to leave him alone in the house until he caught his train to Manchester the following morning.Early the following morning of 18 May 1980, Curtis hanged himself in the kitchen; Deborah Curtis discovered his body when she returned around midday.
The group's posthumous second album Closer (1980) and the single "Love Will Tear Us Apart" became their biggest commercial successes. After Curtis' death, the remaining members soon reformed as New Order and went on to achieve much critical and commercial success.
,01 - Disorder (3:28)
02 - Day Of The Lords (4:43)
03 - Candidate (3:00)
04 - Insight (4:23)
05 - New Dawn Fades (4:45)
06 - She's Lost Control (3:53)
07 - Shadowplay (3:50)
08 - Wilderness (2:35)
09 - Interzone (2:12)
10 - I Remember Nothing (5:52)
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11 - Atmosphere (4:09)
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