How Joe Jackson’s Look Sharp! Defined 1979

In the latter half of the ’70s, there were the fellows who’d later perform as Rockpile, on that band’s one album, as well as their solo work for a brief period.

A young man named Declan McManus, who followed the lead of his professional musician father and grandfather, changed his name along the way and put Elvis Costello & The Attractions into the world.

And then there was a cabaret performer from Portsmouth, who whiled away the time playing songs as a piano man to raise money to record demos.

Those demos paved the way for Look Sharp!, the debut album from Joe Jackson, released 45 years ago this month.

Long characterized as a new wave classic, and justifiably so, the album was a sort of soundtrack of the late ’70s Angry Young Man, some 20 years after the original iteration started to appear in English plays and films. It mixed power pop, reggae, rock and post-punk into a bracing debut.

The literary and theatrical crowd didn’t exactly embrace the term, which was employed rather broadly to a group of men who didn’t commune together at a disaffected Algonquin Round Table.

Likewise for their musical counterparts. Nick Lowe, the most obvious descendant among the Rockpile crowd, had come through the pub rock scene. Costello and Jackson weren’t part of the same scene, but would have more than have similar sensibilities in common at the end of the decade, given later albums that sounded nothing like what initially made them famous.

Jackson’s early work is sort of a snapshot in time to him, tied to a particular place than most of his subsequent music. Even if not part of a specific scene in late ’70s London, he couldn’t help but absorb it, telling The Current in 2019: “I didn’t feel part of anything like a gang. I didn’t necessarily know any of these other people, but when you’re 22 years old and you’re in London and it’s the late ’70s and this stuff is happening and it’s exciting, then of course you’re going to be influenced by it, I think. Problem was, I was already way overqualified to be a punk rocker. I’d already been to the Royal Academy of Music and studied music and got a degree and stuff like that. And then this punk thing came along and it was like, ‘Damn, I didn’t have to do all that.'”

Jackson’s cabaret days didn’t have him flush with cash, but he had no interest in the 9-to-5 grind at that point. He told CMJ in 1979, “Oh yeah. I’ve lived on five quid a week. I don’t know how I survived really, but I managed somehow. They were desperate times, but I was determined that I’d rather not earn any money and starve than work in a factory. I can’t imagine anything worse than that, except maybe working in a supermarket.”

Jackson gained a record deal in 1978. He and his band — drummer David Houghton, bassist Graham Maby and guitarist David Sanford — worked on the songs he’d come up with. By the fall, they had the album recorded.

On the superficial level, the Costello comparisons and Graham Parker made sense. Neither the bespectacled Costello nor Jackson and Parker with their early receding headlines had the look that screamed classic rock star. On a deeper level, they all had a knack for showing an acerbic wit and marrying it to strong songcraft.

Perhaps dipping from the same well of inspiration, Jackson’s debut differed from the other two’s work in that it sounded rougher, more immediate. This was no doubt a function of its quick recording — not a lot of takes with overdubs kept to a minimum.

They’d basically had the album recorded in late ’77 and early ’78, but A&M producer David Kirshenbaum, who’d brought them to the label, had them re-record it the following August.

The calling card would be the first single, one of the biggest hits of Jackson’s career — “Is She Really Going Out With Him?”

Today, it reads as almost more of an incel anthem, its protagonist unable to land the dates he feels entitled to. The guys on the arms of the pretty ladies walking down the street are “gorillas.” If looks could kill, the guy with his ex at the party would be dead.

An exercise in romantic frustration, it winds up illustrating why the guy is single.

What helps it go down smoothly is the construction of the song itself, starting with the fact that Jackson’s aware of the sad nature of the man’s frustrations, as well as of a certain degree of universality in those moments. He sings the verses more quietly, as if almost too tired to muster up the frustration, before those emotions kick in on the chorus.

It didn’t hurt that the chorus itself was rather catchy, either.

For his part, Jackson said he approached the song with a sense of humor, telling Songfacts in 2012: “Now, that is just one of those songs that started with the title. I heard that phrase somewhere and I thought that could be a kind of funny song about gorgeous girls going out with monsters. It just started from there. It was just a funny song, or supposed to be funny. It was a great surprise to me when some people interpreted it as being angry.”

The bitterness of that type of single man also permeated “Happy Loving Couples,” where loneliness spills over into envy. As much as the character would be loath to admit it, you know deep down he wants to be part of a couple wearing matching white polo-necked sweaters and reading Ideal Homes magazine.

Not that Jackson’s misanthropic streak was limited to affairs, or non-existent affairs of the heart. He turned his eye to the U.K. tabloid press on “Sunday Papers.”

The reggae influence moved front-and-center with Sanford’s guitar against Maby’s bass groove that carried Jackson’s cutting lyrics.

If former Eagle Don Henley expressed similar views to greater success on his first solo hit, “Dirty Laundry,” a few years later, Jackson’s take retains a sharper edge. He was more of an observer, not having Henley’s legal issues that colored things with an air of self-victimhood. The words are sharp (“Mother doesn’t go out anymore/Just sits at home and rolls her spastic eyes/But every weekend through the door/Come words of wisdom from the world outside/If you want to know ’bout the bishop and the actress/If you want to know how to be a star/If you want to know ’bout the stains on the mattress/You can read it in the Sunday papers”). There’s a nifty harmonica solo and the call-and-response rave-up ending is a perfect capper.

That throwback rock-and-roll energy runs right through the manic “Throw It All Away” and the similarly fast-paced youthful exuberance, complete with harmonies, of “Baby Stick Around.”

The latter gives Maby, the other star of the show on Look Sharp!, an honest-to-goodness solo. The album’s mix has his bass prominent throughout, allowing it to carry many of the songs.

It’s telling that for all the changes Jackson made musically in the years to come, Maby’s remained a constant in his backing bands.

Jackson throws in his most blatant nod to the past on “Pretty Girls,” which lifts its cap to Manfred Mann’s “Do Wah Diddy” (not to mention the little stuttering moment that does so to “My Generation”).

If the horny frustration rears its head as it does elsewhere on Look Sharp!, here, Jackson turns its sharpest lines against men– “God, if you’re up there, listen to my prayer/In future, man should have a different design/Give him a switch so he can turn off his libido now/Give him a tranquilizer built into his mind.”

Although, men do come with a switch to turn that libido off, as Jackson himself probably felt years later when he said of the song in Entertainment Weekly, “It’s all about pretty girls walking down the street and, Oh wow, isn’t that a turn-on. In retrospect, it’s kind of a stinker. It’s embarrassing—ogling girls, I mean, that’s kind of lame. It’s just childish and silly and derivative, but I was 22 when I wrote it. Not everyone can be a prodigy!”

“Fools for Love” is the most blatant reggae song on the album. The lyrics definitely continue to cast a jaundiced eye towards romance, with a witty kicker. As Jackson put it In his memoir, a Cure for Gravity, “I cataloged all the sick and deluded things that lovers did to each other, but ended each chorus with a twist: ‘I should know because this fool’s in love again.’ I wasn’t in love, but the juxtaposition of the romantic and the cynical suited my new style to a tee.”

He even pulled a little piano solo from the cabaret for it, presaging some of the musical moves he’d make in the ’80s.

While Jackson wrote all the material, he’d chosen his band well. Houghton wasn’t flashy, but he propelled the songs along, tossing in some well-done fills along the way.

Sanford’s role wasn’t to be guitar hero, but he mixes post-punk moves to good effect on urgent album opener “One More Time” and stop-and-start quest for escapism in “(Do The) Instant Mash,” throwing some feints towards bluesiness on the latter.

“Instant Mash” references Jackson’s brief time working in a supermarket. The monotony of working life permeates album closer “Got The Time,” where his reverbed vocals roll through a song that keeps its foot on the accelerator before it ends with the sound of a ticking clock.

A 2001 re-release added two bonus tracks. The propulsive “Don’t Ask Me” plays like it belongs on the soundtrack of an Angry Young Man movie (the title is preceded by the words “if you want the answers,” after all). “Fever of Love” musically sounds like an “Is She Really Going Out With Him?” and lyrically looks at lonely, frustrated guys with a little “Sorry, dude. Sucks to be you” attitude.

Look Sharp! didn’t just have a fresh, well-performed and keenly sequenced set of songs, as it turned out. It also had a recognizable cover, which came about in five minutes during a photo shoot.

Photographer Brian Griffin noticed a shaft of light on the ground in the London location. He asked Jackson to stand next to it, then focused in on his shoes, making it look as if the light was emanating from them.

Jackson was reportedly peeved that his face wasn’t on the cover, but the decision to go with that shot made it more memorable in the long run.

The initial iteration of the band wouldn’t last long. They started recording I’m the Man two months after the release of Look Sharp!, but the final result was anything but a rush job. The follow-up was every bit as good. 1980’s Beat Crazy wasn’t, but had its moments.

That would be the lineup’s last album for over 20 years, as Jackson’s pop records went for sophistication over youthful energy and he also spread out into doing jump blues, jazz and classical records.

It’s easy to be disappointed that we didn’t get more Jackson albums that sounded like Look Sharp!, with this particular lineup. The flipside, however, is that we didn’t get him phoning it in, trying to recapture early glories. It’s difficult to be an angry young man when you’re AARP age, after all. Frankly, given his sense of humor, it’s debatable he was one in his 20s.

As it stands, we have a classic early period kicked off by Look Sharp!. Armed with a scalpel-sharp mind and a knack for creating songs that stick, Joe Jackson’s debut sits comfortably next to his contemporaries’ best work and stands proudly on its own merits.

• Author
• Recent Posts

Kara Tucker

Kara Tucker, after years of sportswriting, has turned to her first-love—music. She lives in New York City with her partner and their competing record collections.

Latest posts by Kara Tucker (see all)

• Here Today: The Beach Boys’ ‘Pet Sounds’ at 60 - May 16, 2026
• Manifest Density: Local H’s ‘As Good As Dead’ Turns 30 - April 30, 2026
• Nowhere Men: The Beatles’ Rubber Soul at 60 - December 6, 2025