Joe Jackson - Rain

Approaching three decades in the music business, Joe Jackson is one of the industry's great chameleons, never sure which skin fits him best, and never keen to be tied to one genre. Rain sees Jackson strip back the arrangements and production to craft simple and occasionally effective pop songs. It's a relaxed album, full of confidence, bearing the mark of someone no longer trying to impress but merely enjoying the music he makes. This ethos drifts frustratingly into self-indulgence in parts however; case in point, The Uptown Train, which drags towards its laboured conclusion at six minutes and isn't the only flat moment on the LP. King Pleasure Time and Good Bad Boy are far better examples of Jackson's talent; the latter an enjoyably urgent effort, wasted though it is at the back end of the album. [Neal Parsons]