Joe Jackson
Mike’s Murder OST
(A&M, 1983)

Joe Jackson: Classical composer, post-punk impresario, sometime swinger, and musician responsible for a handful of little-known soundtracks. The best known are: Tucker: The Man and His Dream (flopped; soundtrack out of print), Queens Logic (flopped; Jackson’s score omitted from official soundtrack), and Mike’s Murder (flopped; soundtrack broke the Top 100; score almost entirely stripped from movie). Mike’s Murder could have been a solid follow-up to Jackson’s 1982 chart-topper Night and Day. Instead, it sunk along with the movie it accompanied.

He was fresh out of Ohio—what did he know about the city?

So intones the throaty narrator on the trailer for the thriller flop of ‘84, Mike’s Murder. Mike is a tennis instructor-cum-coke dealer, goofy, friendly looking, not exactly the CEO of the ROC, no. The lyrics Jackson imagines for his “Mike” are similarly goofy and vulnerable, though Jackson pits his protagonist against New York, where he lived at the time, and the Mike of Mike’s Murder spends his time on the coke-white beaches of LA.

The record begins with the upbeat “Cosmopolitan”, a boastful song about a transplant who’s really made it: “And no one touches me,” the narrator claims, “Unless it’s the way I want it to be / I know I read the right magazines.” In “Laundromat Monday”, he yearns for home cooking: “I’m gonna change the world / But not today / Think I’ll just go get drunk / Down on Avenue A.”

Musically, the record shines. Jackson carves out spots for his arsenal of keyboards: Piano, vibraphone, organ, Prophet V synth, and so on. Graham Maby’s bass work is strong and consistent, and finds room to flourish; on “Cosmopolitan”, he holds tight to a tense note, refusing to let the song resolve itself. Those who like Jackson’s “Steppin’ Out” (from his immediately prior record Night and Day) will find that that song’s synth bassline is almost facsimiled on “Memphis”, and to good effect. Side two is all instrumental film-scoring, but not half bad.

“Zémio” is a spooky, salsa-inflected chase joint, fitting for a movie about drug-running in LA. The 11-minute jam features an intricate Pastorius-style bass riff from Maby, and once the song settles into a groove, it gives Jackson a chance to solo on the keys, unpacking some Latin montunos in a jazz-funk format. This is a welcome indulgence since his pop-rock music is tightly constructed and rarely has room for extrapolated work on the keys.

Though not as exciting as “Zémio”, “Breakdown” is the track that earned Jackson a 1984 Grammy nomination for “Best Pop Instrumental Performance.” (He was up against Helen St. John’s “Love Theme from Flashdance”; both lost to George Benson’s “Being with You.”)

In a world gone mad, Joe Jackson’s score was left on the cutting room floor…

Despite these examples of great musical work committed to celluloid, the album is largely forgotten. Maybe it’s a matter of timing: The album was released in September 1983, but the film didn’t come out ’til March 1984, so the record didn’t enjoy much cross-marketing. Even if it had, the movie was a flop.

In fact, even if the movie and soundtrack were released on the same day and the movie was a huge success, the final, commercially released cut of the movie barely featured any of Jackson’s music. Some higher-up mover-and-shaker in a bigwig full of “zany” ideas plastered a score by John Barry over most of Jackson’s work. Barry’s not half bad—you may be familiar with his hugely famous arrangement of the “James Bond Theme”—but he’s not Jackson either. Last spring, Mike’s Murder was screened at San Francisco’s Castro Theatre, but with Jackson’s work relegated to a few minor cues I kept the hell away from the screening. (This same print was released on DVD in August—I still haven’t seen it.)

Mike’s Murder was introduced to the compact disc in 2003 on the deluxe reissue of Night and Day; it was also re-released as a soundtrack in 2006. But hold on to your pennies, kids. The proper and economical way to listen to Mike’s Murder is to seek it out in a bargain bin. The patient and discerning shopper will find a vinyl copy for a few bucks and spin that shit silly.

Listen: Joe Jackson, “Cosmopolitan” [at youtube.com]

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