Customer Reviews

Joe Jackson: Night Music

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Music for the dark night of the soul. The kind of thing that makes you want to call the artist and ask, "My God-- are you all right? " Some of this is beautiful, some of it is darkly touching, and every time I hear the first bars of "Flying" ("the older I get, the more stupid I feel") I can't help but laugh. Mortality, age, hope, creation-- this is a cd for grownups, and for people who don't mind music that is impossible to pigeonhole by genre. It's not something that I listen to often, but I still consider it one of the essentials in my collection.

One of the principal reasons I am a Joe Jackson fan is that he seems constantly to recreate himself and to explore new musical vistas, teaching me something along the way about jazz, classical, etc. He does it again on this album, a mood piece if there ever was one: best listened to between midnight and sunrise. The songs are perfectly crafted and rendered and most of them linger in my mind for days.

Night Music haunts me every time I listen to it. Jackson has crafted a masterpiece that needs to be experienced with the lights out. An elegaic mood is created by his songs. Enjoy!!!!

While browsing through a used tape and CD store, I stumbled across Night Music. Prior to it, my only real exposure to Joe Jackson was Night and Day. To say Night Music is a little different is an understatement. It is at once haunting, majestic, dark, sad, and exhilarating, but definitely not the pop- or jazz-infused work that most people know Jackson for. Do yourself a favor and find this CD.

I've enjoyed Joe Jackson's music for years and have followed along through the myriad of style changes and maturing of his music. It's a shame he gets lumped in with "those new wave guys" when really he bears little resemblance to the groups of the late 70's early 80's who stayed in those niches. I wish this album - along with Heaven & Hell, his diverse song cycle on the seven deadly sins - were linked into his full "pop" catalog instead of in the classical section where, frankly, the music won't find many new ears amongst the wider audience and precious few adventurous ears amongst the classical audience willing to check it out. Do yourself a favor and give it a listen!

I like to think of myself as pretty open-minded, and willing to follow Joe most anywhere he would go musically, but I was rather disappointed in this. Emphasis is on his slower, more introspective side. No more snotty tirades--he's growing, OK, but a lot of this music I think is pretty, but not terribly memorable. I like "Ever After" and "Danny Boy"; the rest is very slick stuff with not much substance. The production is very clean to the point of antiseptic, electric keyboards and synthesized strings all about. Background music for sure. I was much more impressed with "Heaven and Hell", his next project, I believe--good ideas, good songs, novel arrangements.