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Just Jack, AKA North London Boy Jack Allsopp, hails 'Starz In Their Eyes' as a "questioning ode to the Heat generation"... His music fits into the new school of British storytelling but isn't afraid to wear its party hat on its sleeve, he believes that a "delicious, sly groove" is the best way to access the soul.Wearing a hat on your sleeve? How would that work exactly? Mixed metaphors aside, it's taken ten tracks for us to come to a song I liked enough to put my hand in my pocket. As you can see, I plumped for the rather swish etched 7" single, even if it did mean paying £1:99 for one song (and even that turned out to be the album version, so I didn't officially get the single edit until I bought Now 66). I was disappointed if not surprised when it peaked at 2 behind Mika's first week at the top: Mika was blatantly going to get to the top eventually, but I had hoped he might step aside and give this one week.
It was not to be, but at least it does give Just Jack the same career peak as Squeeze, and in some ways this reminds me of a 21st-Century version of a Squeeze song. Admittedly he's not from quite the same part of London, but this seems to have some of the same light-hearted but acerbic attitude set to a slightly more modern musical style. Generally, I do find this sort of thing - songs bewailing or mocking manufactured pop stars - rather irritating, but this has a certain element of sympathy for them that makes it more palatable, and a rather neat turn of phrase: I like the image of "the rest of these users are just laughing in their sleeves", although he doesn't explain whether there are any hats up there.
Available on: Brits Hits 2008
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