Beat Crazy (song)
1981 single by Joe Jackson
"Beat Crazy" is the title track to the Joe Jackson Band's 1981 album Beat Crazy. Written by Joe Jackson, and sung by Graham Maby, it was released as a single in 1981.
Background
According to Jackson, when he performed the song live at Pinkpop Festival in 1980, the song is dedicated to "drug-crazed teenagers all over the world." The lyrics of the song complain of how kids of the time are too busy on drugs – saying that they are all too "beat crazy" – to take responsibility and get jobs. Musically, the song, like many others on Beat Crazy, is more reggae-influenced than songs on Jackson's previous two albums. Unlike many other songs by Jackson, the lead vocals are performed by bassist Graham Maby with Jackson on supporting vocals. The vocals also feature an echo effect.
"Beat Crazy" saw a single release in January 1981 as the second single from Beat Crazy (the first being "Mad at You," which did not chart). Backed with a rerecording of Jackson's first hit, "Is She Really Going Out With Him?," the song failed to chart. A third single, "One to One," also failed commercially.
Reception
Upon its release as a single, Gavin Martin of NME remarked that "Beat Crazy" "sounds too much like self-conscious, time-killing adult pop".
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This entry incorporates text from “Beat Crazy (song)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.