Rykodisc
2003
Volume 4
About This Album
It only took two albums before Joe Jackson got restless, pushing away from the nervy, high-octane, well-crafted punk-pop of Look Sharp! and I'm the Man toward the ska leanings of Beat Crazy, before abandoning the Joe Jackson Band altogether. Without them, he roamed wild, laying the groundwork for neo-swing with Jumpin' Jive and etching out sophisti-pop on his Cole Porter/George Gershwin-flavored Night and Day, before expanding into symphonic compositions and other increasingly esoteric stylistic exercises, whittling his audience down to just the dedicated in the process. Even among those dedicated fans, the first two Jackson albums were cherished, and Jackson acknowledged that on occasion by appropriating the sound, as on 1991's Laughter & Lust. Still, it took him a full 23 years to reunite his original band, an event celebrated by the release of Volume 4 (the title indicating that this is the fourth go-round for this band, kind of like how Van Halen III kicked off the third incarnation of the band). It would be inaccurate to say that this captures the bristling energy or spitting vitriol of the first two records, though Volume 4 certainly follows a similar template and often feels similar in form, if not in substance, to that pair.
Track List

Disc 1 (try tracks 1,2,3,6 and 9)

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Disc 2

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