Pirates (Rickie Lee Jones album)
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (August 2023) |
| Pirates | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Rock | ||||
| Length | 38:38 | |||
| Label | Warner Bros. | |||
| Producer | ||||
| Rickie Lee Jones chronology | ||||
| ||||
Pirates is the second studio album by American singer-songwriter Rickie Lee Jones, released on July 15, 1981, by Warner Bros. Records. The follow-up to her 1979 self-titled debut album, Pirates is partially an account of her break-up with fellow musician Tom Waits after the success of her debut album. The cover is a 1976-copyrighted photo by Brassaï.[1]
The album peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard 200[2] and was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America on September 30, 1981, for sales of 500,000 copies.[3] The album remained on the UK album charts for three months, and was certified Silver by the British Phonographic Industry.
Recording
Initial recording for Pirates began in January 1980, with the live recordings for "Skeletons" and "The Returns" from January 30 from these sessions kept on the final album. In the same month, Jones picked up a
Jones came to album sessions at Warner Bros. Recording Studios in
All songs were copyrighted on June 9, 1980, as well as "Hey Bub", which was omitted from the album release, except for "Living It Up" and "Traces of the Western Slopes", copyrighted in July 1981, at the time of the album release.
Overview
Jones relocated to
Jones started writing the first songs from the album - "Hey Bub" (unreleased until 1983), "We Belong Together" and "Pirates" - in the autumn of 1979.
Elsewhere, the music on Pirates is often cinematic, with influences ranging from
Critical reception
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [4] |
| Christgau's Record Guide | C+[5] |
| Record Mirror | [6] |
| Rolling Stone | [7] |
Pirates received a perfect five-star rating in Rolling Stone, with Stephen Holden writing; "Rickie Lee Jones' Pirates arrives like a cloudburst in the desert of Eighties formula pop music and recycled heavy-metal rock. Explosively passionate and exhilaratingly eccentric, this freeform, piano-based song cycle compares with Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, Bruce Springsteen's The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, and Joni Mitchell's Court and Spark in the bravura way it weaves autobiography and personal myth into a flexible musical setting that conjures a lifetime's worth of character and incident." He concluded his review by stating; "[i]t's Rickie Lee Jones' voice that carries Pirates to the stars and makes her whole crazy vision not only comprehensible but compulsive, compelling and as welcome as Christmas in July."[7]
Jones was featured for a second time on the cover of the August 6, 1981, issue of Rolling Stone. The Age wrote in their review: "On Pirates, Rickie Lee Jones executes a brilliant artistic leap which not only outshines her Grammy-winning debut album but establishes her as one of the most important singer/songwriters of the decade." The New York Times wrote that Pirates "is such a remarkable piece of work that Miss Jones's first album now sounds like a somewhat tentative rehearsal for it... Traces of the flippant, neo-beat persona she adopted on Rickie Lee Jones are still in evidence, but on the whole Pirates is a more personal album."[8]
Track listing
Credits adapted from the album's liner notes.[9] All tracks written by Rickie Lee Jones, with additional writers noted.
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "We Belong Together" | 4:59 | |
| 2. | "Living It Up" | 6:23 | |
| 3. | "Skeletons" | 3:37 | |
| 4. | "Woody and Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking" | David Kalish | 5:15 |
| 5. | "Pirates (So Long Lonely Avenue)" | 3:50 | |
| 6. | "A Lucky Guy" | 4:14 | |
| 7. | "Traces of the Western Slopes" | Sal Bernardi | 8:00 |
| 8. | "The Returns" | 2:20 | |
| Total length: | 38:38 | ||
Personnel
- Rickie Lee Jones – vocals, guitar, keyboards, synthesizer, percussion, vocals & horn arrangements
- Donald Fagen – synthesizer
- Victor Feldman – drums, percussion, keyboards
- Rob Mounsey – synthesizer
- David Sanborn – alto saxophone
- Tom Scott – baritone and tenor saxophone
- Ralph Burns – orchestral arrangements
- Chuck Rainey – bass
- Sal Bernardi – harmonica, vocals
- Michael Boddicker – synthesizer
- Randy Brecker – trumpet, flugelhorn
- Lenny Castro – percussion
- Nick DeCaro – orchestral arrangements
- Buzz Feiten – guitar
- Russell Ferrante– keyboards
- Steve Gadd – drums
- Jerry Hey – trumpet, flugelhorn, horn
- David Kalish – guitar
- Randy Kerber – keyboards
- Neil Larsen – keyboards
- Arno Lucas– backing vocals
- Steve Lukather – guitar
- Clarence McDonald – keyboards
- Dean Parks – guitar
- Art Rodriguez – drums
- Leslie Smith – backing vocals
- Joe Turano – backing vocals
- Technical
- Lee Hershberg,Loyd Clifft, Mark Linett – recording engineer
- Lee Hershberg, Mark Linett – mix engineer
- Mike Salisbury – cover design
- Brassaï – front cover photography
Charts
Weekly charts
|
Year-end charts
|
Certifications
| Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom (BPI)[18] | Silver | 60,000^ |
| United States (RIAA)[19] | Gold | 500,000^ |
|
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. | ||
References
- ^ "Brassaï and his night scenes of Paris". Sein Sigma. 2019-10-23. Retrieved 2022-02-01.
I learned Brassaï thanks to the 1981 album "Pirates" by American singer-songwriter Ricky [sic] Lee Jones. The photo on the cover showed two lovers locking eyes in the dark of the night; the image and the white of the couple's breath were a brilliant match for the album's intimate and languid vocal. Fascinated, I searched the album credit's for the name of the photographer capable of taking such a photo, and that became my first encounter with the name "Brassaï."
- ^ "US Albums and Singles Charts > Rickie Lee Jones". Billboard. Archived from the original on August 27, 2017. Retrieved January 3, 2020.
- ^ "American certifications – Rickie Lee Jones". Recording Industry Association of America. Archived from the original on July 2, 2022. Retrieved July 2, 2022.
- ^ Iyengar, Vik. "Pirates – Rickie Lee Jones". AllMusic. Retrieved December 8, 2020.
- ISBN 0-679-73015-X. Retrieved March 5, 2008.
- ^ Cooper, Mark (August 15, 1981). "No one trick pony". Record Mirror. p. 18.
- ^ a b Holden, Stephen (September 3, 1981). "Rickie Lee Jones: Pirates". Rolling Stone. No. 351. Archived from the original on November 12, 2007. Retrieved May 25, 2006.
- ^ Palmer, Robert (19 July 1981). "Recordings". The New York Times. p. A23.
- ^ Pirates (booklet). Rickie Lee Jones. Warner Bros. 1981.
{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link) - ISBN 0-646-11917-6.
- ^ "Top RPM Albums: Issue 4681". RPM. Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
- ^ "Dutchcharts.nl – Rickie Lee Jones – Pirates" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
- ^ "Charts.nz – Rickie Lee Jones – Pirates". Hung Medien. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
- ^ "Norwegiancharts.com – Rickie Lee Jones – Pirates". Hung Medien. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
- ^ "Official Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
- ^ "Rickie Lee Jones Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
- Recorded Music New Zealand. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
- ^ "British album certifications – Rickie Lee Jones – Pirates". British Phonographic Industry. July 6, 1990. Retrieved September 2, 2021.
- ^ "American album certifications – Rickie Lee Jones – Pirates". Recording Industry Association of America. September 30, 1981. Retrieved February 20, 2013.
