'Hello cruel world / I'm not going away / So I might as well have my say', sings Joe Jackson on his new album, and there's no doubt that at a point when many of his contemporaries have lost their passion, their talent, their voices or even their lives, Jackson goes from strength to strength. Hope and Fury might, in fact, just be his best album yet.
Though often depicted as a chameleonic artist who constantly 'changes his style,' Jackson insists that most of his albums are in 'his own mainstream' - collections of sophisticated pop songs, using different kinds of rhythms and combinations of instruments. At the same time, Jackson reserves the right to step away from that mainstream. As he said in a rare recent interview for the UK's Chap magazine, 'I always knew I was in this music thing for life. So every now and again I'm going to do something different, to keep it interesting'. Jackson's most recent 'sidestep', Mr. Joe Jackson presents Max Champion in 'What A Racket!', saw him hilariously channeling a forgotten Music Hall entertainer from Edwardian England.
Hope and Fury returns to the present, and the 'JJ mainstream', with nine strong new songs. After laying the groundwork for the album in Michael Tibes' Fuzz Factory studio in Berlin, Jackson returned to New York's Reservoir Studios with co-producer Patrick Dillett, and assembled his on-and-off band since 2016 - 'bassist for life' Graham Maby, guitarist Teddy Kumpel, and drummer Doug Yowell - augmented by the latin percussion of Peruvian native Paulo Stagnaro. The result might strike a fan as a cross between 2019's Fool, 1991's Laughter and Lust, and 1982's Night and Day.
