Recorded live at a small venue in Manhattan, you will not hear an audience because they were asked to remain quiet. A friend who attended the show said aside from a few false starts, what you hear is what he heard, no remixing. Not many artists write with such feeling and perform with such emotion. Bare bones and raw, this is Joe Jackson at his best...which is truly an achievement. Buy this CD and you will find the songs to be infectuous. This "album" stayed on my turntable for months. Unfortunately, the record company did not do a good job of promotion and the record withered. I have never written a review before this, but feel compelled to as this collection should not go un-noticed.

I bought this album when it first came out -- on a whim -- and I've been a Joe Jackson fan ever since. I remember a review at the time described Joe as a kind of an eclectic professor, instructing everyone on just how worldly, diverse and genre-breaking a pop musician could get. I like his other eras, but I still think "Big World" is his best.

This is one album that is a must for every J.J.fan however, non regular fans will love it also. J.J. uses a great three piece backing band to deliver a tremendously rounded performance. If the album has a live feel to it read the liner notes to find out the unique way it was recorded to give it this sound. The songs are flat out awesome, and are delivered with great passion. Pay particular attention to the last two songs "Man in the Street" and "Hometown", which are aabsolutely stellar. J.J. uses so many different styles and textures on this disc that one cannot help but wonder why this brilliant artist is so easily overlooked. Buy this disc, have a good listen and you too will be hooked!

Ever the chameleon Joe Jackson pulled another complete 360 with the release of "Big World" in 1986. On this album he pulls away from the sound of his previous two (very successful) albums, puts together a basic rock combo (Keys, bass, drums, guitar) and records the whole thing in front of a live audience. All audience noise has been edited out, so it sounds like a studio disc. When the album came out on vinyl it spanned 3 discs, and on CD it fits in at right around 1 hour. Along with "Laughter And Lust" this is definilty one of Jackson's most underrated albums. Much of it comes across almost as AOR rock which one would not think would be Jackson's forte, but he pulls off everything admirably here. "Big World" would unfortunately start a commercial slide for Jackson as it would only chart in the high 30's. The only single to do much was the song "Right And Wrong" which would get some airplay on mainstream rock / AOR radio, but then faded away fairly quickly. This is too bad as I think this might have been Joe's best album up to this point in his career. There are 15 tracks on this disc and just about all of them feature prime Joe Jackson songwriting. I am not going to go through all of the tracks, but suffice to say that I don't think there is a weak one in the bunch. This album tends to get overlooked in the cannon of Joe Jackson's catalogue, but if you are at all a fan, this along with "Laughter And Lust" are two must own albums that are often sadly underappreciated.

One of the great things about JJ is that he's always done exactly what he wants musically. That can come across as arrogance, and there's no doubt that he doesn't have much patience for his fans. But you know what? I could care less. In a world where artists seem to be content to regurgitate the same crap album after album, I am hugely grateful that Jackson has the integrity to make the music he does.

Big World is a great example of Jackson's desire to push tradition. Recorded live over (as I recall) three nights there are no overdubs anywhere - and no noise. The audience was asked to be silent between takes and Jackson selected what he though were the best tracks from each night. The result is not only a great sounding record but a successful experiment in recording, proving you don't need to fill a room with 2" Ampex 456 to make a great record.

Every song is great, unique and wonderfully recorded. As an aside, though perhaps arrogant Jackson does in fact have a sense of humor: 2 examples, one public, one personal. Public: liner notes on Beat Crazy. Private: I saw Jackson at a small club in Sag Harbor, NY while he was on a tour rehearsing this record. Obviously no one knew the songs he was playing as he was rehearsing a record he had not yet released, and between every song there were shouts from the crowd for hits - primarily of course "Is She Really Going Out With Him?". After a few rounds of this, Jackson became visibly annoyed and screamed at the crowd that the next f'ing song that was requested he would be sure NOT to play.

I was standing up against the stage at the time, and as he launched into his next tune (with the crowd a bit quieter and probably slightly put off) I pulled myself up onto the stage just enough to read the set list on the bass monitor. As he finished the tune and the applause died, I yelled "PLAY BIG WORLD!" at the top of my lungs which of course I had never heard of but was the next song on the set list. He turned in my direction looking tremendously pissed off and then realized what had happened. He cracked up, loosened up and did in fact play Big World. Great night, great fun, great record.