JOE JACKSON > Rain

Joe Jackson recorded Rain in East Berlin-not a place most of us would go to seek inspiration, but Jackson’s never been one to choose a common path. He does, however, have an uncanny ability to touch places we’ve all tread in his most tortured moments of longing, doubt and sometimes-bitter disillusion…all conveyed in his lyrical search for that most universally desired, and most elusive, of conditions: happiness

Label: Ryko
[Rating: 4 STARS]

Joe Jackson recorded Rain in East Berlin-not a place most of us would go to seek inspiration, but Jackson’s never been one to choose a common path. He does, however, have an uncanny ability to touch places we’ve all tread in his most tortured moments of longing, doubt and sometimes-bitter disillusion…all conveyed in his lyrical search for that most universally desired, and most elusive, of conditions: happiness. His genius is in being able to give new expression to those age-old emotions-not only via almost haiku lines like those in “Citizen Sane” and “Solo (So Low)”-but in his equally eloquent fingers. He’s a delicate, Gershwin-esque concert pianist one minute, a keyboard-pounding r&b/jazz cat the next. And still as mesmerizing as he was when he first hit our ears 30 years ago with “Is She Really Going Out with Him.”