Pirates (Rickie Lee Jones album)

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]

Pirates
Studio album by
Rickie Lee Jones
ReleasedJuly 15, 1981
RecordedJanuary 1980 - April 1981
StudioWarner Bros. Recording Studios, North Hollywood, California
GenreRock
Length38:38
LabelWarner Bros.
Producer
Rickie Lee Jones chronology
Rickie Lee Jones
(1979)		 Pirates
(1981)		 Girl at Her Volcano
(1983)

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 Grammy Award for Best New Artist.

Jones came to album sessions at Warner Bros. Recording Studios in North Hollywood with five songs, which were recorded and arranged in a two-month spurt in early 1980 before Jones was given an extended break for further writing. Album sessions reconvened in November 1980 and concluded in April 1981, three months before the album release.

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 New York City after her split from Tom Waits and soon set up home with a fellow musician, Sal Bernardi from New Jersey, whom she had met in Venice, California, in the mid-1970s, writing in their apartment in Greenwich Village. Bernardi, who had been referenced in the lyrics to "Weasel and the White Boys Cool" from her debut, was to become a frequent collaborator with Jones, and they composed the epic eight-minute suite "Traces of the Western Slopes" together.

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 Leonard Bernstein to Bruce Springsteen and Laura Nyro. The album is more musically ambitious than its predecessor and explores elements of jazz, R&B, bebop, pop and Broadway, with multiple changes in tempo and mood within most songs.

Critical reception
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[4]
Christgau's Record GuideC+[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.TitleWriter(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 Kalish5:15
5."Pirates (So Long Lonely Avenue)" 3:50
6."A Lucky Guy" 4:14
7."Traces of the Western Slopes"Sal Bernardi8:00
8."The Returns" 2:20
Total length:38:38

Personnel
Technical
  • Loyd Clifft, Mark Linett – engineer
  • Mike Salisbury – cover design
  • Brassaï – front cover photography

Charts

Certifications
Region CertificationCertified units/sales
United Kingdom (BPI)[18] Silver 60,000^
United States (RIAA)[19] Gold 500,000^

^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

References
  1. "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."
  2. "US Albums and Singles Charts > Rickie Lee Jones". Billboard. Archived from the original on August 27, 2017. Retrieved January 3, 2020.
  3. "American certifications – Rickie Lee Jones". Recording Industry Association of America. Archived from the original on July 2, 2022. Retrieved July 2, 2022.
  4. Iyengar, Vik. "Pirates – Rickie Lee Jones". AllMusic. Retrieved December 8, 2020.
  5. Christgau, Robert (1990). "Rickie Lee Jones: Pirates". Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s. Pantheon Books. ISBN 0-679-73015-X. Retrieved March 5, 2008.
  6. Cooper, Mark (August 15, 1981). "No one trick pony". Record Mirror. p. 18.
  7. 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.
  8. Palmer, Robert (19 July 1981). "Recordings". The New York Times. p. A23.
  9. Pirates (booklet). Rickie Lee Jones. Warner Bros. 1981.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  10. Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrated ed.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.
  11. "Top RPM Albums: Issue 4681". RPM. Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
  12. "Dutchcharts.nl – Rickie Lee Jones – Pirates" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
  13. "Charts.nz – Rickie Lee Jones – Pirates". Hung Medien. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
  14. "Norwegiancharts.com – Rickie Lee Jones – Pirates". Hung Medien. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
  15. "Official Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
  16. "Rickie Lee Jones Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
  17. "Top Selling Albums of 1981 — The Official New Zealand Music Chart". Recorded Music New Zealand. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
  18. "British album certifications – Rickie Lee Jones – Pirates". British Phonographic Industry. July 6, 1990. Retrieved September 2, 2021.
  19. "American album certifications – Rickie Lee Jones – Pirates". Recording Industry Association of America. September 30, 1981. Retrieved February 20, 2013.
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