What the hell is wrong with you tonight?
I can’t seem to say or do the right thing
Joe Jackson and Elvis Costello have a lot in common. Both are British, and both are almost the same age – Costello is exactly two weeks younger.
Both initially had success with new wave music before moving on to make more sophisticated, jazz-influenced records.
And both are critically-acclaimed songwriters who have achieved only middling commercial success.
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| Joe Jackson in 1979 |
The biggest difference I see between them is that Costello is much more famous than Jackson – or, at least, that’s my perception. (I can’t point to anything that definitively proves that, but I’m fairly confident that it’s true.)
The music of both men got roughly the same amount of attention for the first decade or so of their careers. But while Costello has remained in the public eye since then – he won an Academy Award for a song he co-wrote for Cold Mountain, composed orchestral works, and appeared in several American television series (including Sesame Street) – the records Jackson released over the past 25 years (with the exception of his newest, 2019’s Fool) haven’t gotten much notice.
The bottom line is that I wouldn’t say that Costello is underrated as an artist. But I don’t think Jackson has gotten his due.
Jackson’s first few albums – Look Sharp!, I’m the Man, Beat Crazy, and Night and Day – are full of remarkable songs. None of his contemporaries wrote better ones.
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“It’s Different for Girls” – which was released in 1979 on Jackson’s I’m the Man album – was a #5 hit single in the UK, but failed to crack the top 100 in the U.S.
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It’s a terribly sad song – as are “Breaking Us in Two,” and “One More Time,” and several other of my Joe Jackson favorites.
But even Jackson’s clever songs – and no one has ever written a more wickedly clever pop song than “Biology” – are terribly sad.
Click here to listen to “It’s Different for Girls.”
Click below to buy the song from Amazon:
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