Wednesday, May 9, 2018

Joe Jackson - The Harder They Come - Non-Album Tracks (1980)

Joe Jackson is another artist I really like. I don't know of a lot of alternate albums one can make from his material (other than live stuff), but I do have a couple.

I particularly enjoy his earliest albums, when he had energetic yet witty and tuneful songs. It turns out one can make another album in the style of "Look Sharp!" if one gathers up various B-sides and live tracks. (As I usually do when adding live tracks with studio ones, I've generally edited the live tracks to remove the crowd noise.)

In 1980, Jackson put out a single with a cover version of "The Harder They Come" as the A-side. It was a minor hit, but I think it's mostly been forgotten due to it not appearing on any of his official albums at the time. I'm using this as the title of this alternate album, as well as using the single's cover art (with the minor change of removing the name of the B-sides and enlarging the remaining words to cover that up).

Seven of the 12 songs here are cover songs. But they're all done in the early Joe Jackson style and they sound like songs he could have written. I'm imaging this album could have come out in 1980, since all the songs are from 1979 or 1980 except for one, "Knock Me a Kiss," a B-side from 1981.

As it happens, the album is 36 minutes long, and only five seconds longer than his "Look Sharp!" album.

The songs "Ain't Misbehavin'" and "Twenty Flight Rock" are cover versions. Unfortunately, the sound quality isn't that great, so I've only included those are bonus tracks. However, the sound on them is still pretty good, just not at the same level as the others.

01 The Harder They Come (Joe Jackson)
02 Out of Style (Joe Jackson)
03 Tilt (Joe Jackson)
04 Pressure Drop (Joe Jackson)
05 Come On (Joe Jackson)
06 Don't Ask Me (Joe Jackson)
07 You Got the Fever (Joe Jackson)
08 I Can't Give You Anything (Joe Jackson)
09 Enough Is Not Enough (Joe Jackson)
10 Knock Me a Kiss (Joe Jackson)
11 Ain't that a Shame (Joe Jackson)
12 Life Is a Bowl of Cherries (Joe Jackson)

Ain't Misbehavin'
Twenty Flight Rock

https://www.upload.ee/files/15906826/JoeJacks_1979d-1980_TheHardrTheyCome_atse.zip.html

The cover is the official cover for the "The Harder They Come" EP, but I made a change to replace three song titles in the bottom corner to just one song title.

5 comments:

  1. Very cool! Joe is one of my faves, but I never thought of there being enough "extra" material for another album. Thank you.

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  2. You're welcome. I've got a 1983 studio album coming from him too. It's mostly based on the "Mike's Murder" soundtrack, but there's some other stuff on it as well.

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  3. Thanks! I've been trying for years to find Joe Jackson's demos for Look Sharp. Has anyone ever seen them circulating?

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    1. I've never heard about that. Do you have some reason to believe those demos have circulated publicly?

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