Ye Olde Hit Parade: I'm the Man

1980: Joe Jackson - I'm the Man

The first year of a new decade is always interesting. You still have remnants of the previous decade hanging around and it takes a little while to get a feel for the new one (for example, we're currently discovering that the theme of the Roaring '20s may be Death and Destruction).

Like our current situation, it was also an election year in 1980, one that saw a former actor become president. And there were plenty of big events, including the murder of John Lennon, the eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington State, Rosie Ruiz "won" the Boston Marathon, the U.S. men's hockey team upset the Russians in the Winter Olympics and then the U.S. boycotted the Summer Olympics in Moscow.

The year got off to a strange start for me, as my parents took me and my brother out of school for six weeks starting in January as we went to visit relatives in India. I was in the 7th grade and the whole thing was pretty jarring. One minute, I'm in school in Pickering, Ontario; the next, I'm experiencing a totally different lifestyle halfway across the world. Typically, the best time to visit India is during our winter, when it's not too hot over there. By March, it starts to get really hot (like triple digits) and in the summer, it's pretty rainy and miserable.

So we left in January and got back in March. I had homework to do to try and keep up while I was over there; I don't remember being too far behind when I got back, but school was pretty easy for me back then. I recall that right after we got back to Canada, my grade went on a field trip to a historic site (I think it was this one) and stayed over for a few days at a nearby college.

But I was completely in a void when it came to popular culture. There was no way to stay in touch with what was going on over here, so I had no clue what music was getting played on the radio. I immersed myself back into the rock and pop getting played on the Toronto stations: New music from Genesis, Pete Townshend, the Stones, Eric Clapton, Martha and the Muffins, the Pretenders, J. Geils Band, Billy Joel, Rush, I dug it all. Yet, the song that really hooked me was the title track of Joe Jackson's I'm the Man.


And yes, I know the album came out in '79, the same year as his excellent record Look Sharp!, but "I'm the Man" didn't get airplay in Toronto until early '80. I can remember hearing it on my clock radio one morning as I woke up for school and thinking I couldn't wait until I heard it again. That propulsive bass (by the incredible Graham Maby) drove the song as Jackson's fast-talking huckster detailed his various get-rich-quick schemes. It was 4 minutes of absolute fun, pegged firmly in the camp of the New Wave of rock that was giving some of the older artists a little wakeup call (of course, punk came first, but I was fairly clueless about that except for the occasional alarmist news report on TV).

I was already a Joe Jackson fan thanks to "Is She Really Going Out With Him?" from the previous year. I ran out and bought the 45 of "I'm the Man" and played it early and often. Years later, I was surprised to read that the album wasn't a huge hit in the U.S., especially with the infectious title track as the lead single (it got up to #22 on the album chart, but didn't even go gold). And there were so many great songs on the album that I loved: "On Your Radio," "It's Different For Girls," "Friday." Only "It's Different For Girls" was released as a single and it couldn't crack the Billboard Top 100.

Jackson's follow-ups, Beat Crazy and Jumpin' Jive, performed even worse but he broke through in a big way with 1982's Night and Day, which was much more sedate piano-driven pop. I didn't like it at the time, especially the big hit "Steppin' Out," but I came back around several years later.

Joe Jackson has had an interesting career since the early '80s, getting into classical music, but occasionally getting the old Joe Jackson Band back together to make a rock album. But for me, those first three albums are peak JJ. Forty years later, I still get fired up when I hear "I'm the Man." If that isn't a sign of true musical greatness, I don't know what is.

Honorable mentions: The B-52s - "Rock Lobster"; Pink Floyd - "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)"; Queen - "Another One Bites the Dust"; The Pretenders - "Brass In Pocket"; Blondie - "Call Me"; David Bowie - "Ashes to Ashes"; Billy Joel - "You May Be Right"; Donnie Iris - "Ah! Leah!"; Max Webster - "Battle Scar"; Rush - "The Spirit of Radio"; Van Halen - "And the Cradle Will Rock"; Martha and the Muffins - "Echo Beach"; The Rolling Stones - "She's So Cold"; Genesis - "Misunderstanding"; Peter Gabriel - "Games Without Frontiers"; Pete Townshend - "Let My Love Open the Door"; XTC - "Making Plans for Nigel"; Gary Numan - "Cars"