Often labeled a musical chameleon, Jackson insists that most of his work belongs to his own “mainstream” – sophisticated pop songs with ever-shifting rhythms and textures. After his playful detour with What a Racket! (a 2023 side project exploring early 20th-century British entertainment and music), he now returns to that core territory.

Ever since Joe Jackson's debut album, Look Sharp, yielded his first single in "Is She Really Going Out With Him?" in July of 1979, which peaked at number 21 on Billboard (the album hit number 20), his career has seen him investigate a multitude of musical styles with clean-cut charm and poise. Jackson has dabbled in everything from reggae, disco, and soul to power pop, jazz, and even big band. Stepping Out covers 15 of his biggest singles, including his highest chart-topper, "Stepping Out," which hit number six on Billboard's Top 40, from the suave sounding Night and Day album. The downhearted appeal of "Breaking Us in Two" appears here as well, along with the salsa- flavored "You Can't Get What You Want (Till You Know What You Want)," which reached number 15 and was the strongest track from 1984's Body and Soul album. Outside of his chart appearances, the rest of this hits collection holds up well. Jackson's voice is heard in wispy detail on "Fools in Love," while his humor and wit explode on "I'm the Man" from the album of the same name. The live release entitled Big World from 1986 is spoken for with both "Right and Wrong" and the candid allure of "Hometown."

1982 will forever be known as the year that the punks got class – or at least when Joe Jackson and Elvis Costello, rivals for the title of Britain's reigning Angry Young Man – decided that they were not just rockers, but really songwriters in the Tin Pan Alley tradition. (Graham Parker, fellow angry Brit, sat this battle out, choosing to work with Aerosmith producer Jack Douglas instead.) Both had been genre-hopping prior to 1982, but Jackson's Night and Day and Costello's Imperial Bedroom announced to the world that both were "serious songwriters," standing far apart from the clamoring punkers and silly new wavers. In retrospect, the ambitions of these two 27-year-olds (both born in August 1954, just two weeks apart) seem a little grandiose, and if Imperial Bedroom didn't live up to its masterpiece marketing campaign (stalling at number 30 on the charts without generating a hit), it has garnered a stronger reputation than Night and Day, which was a much more popular album, climbing all the way to number four on the U.S. charts, thanks to the Top Ten single "Steppin' Out".

Body and Soul has Joe Jackson playing both hot- and cool-styled jazz songs, getting some worthy help from producer David Kershenbaum, who also lent Jackson a hand on his I'm the Man album. This is Jackson at his smoothest, from the fragility of "Not Here Not Now" to the earnestness of "Be My Number Two." While both this song and "Happy Ending" charted fairly low in the U.K., the explosive "You Can't Get What You Want" went to number 15 in the United States, thanks to the brilliant horn work and colorful jazz-pop mingling of all the other instruments, not to mention Jackson's suave singing.

British sci-fi drama Ashes to Ashes, a follow-up to the popular Life on Mars series, follows the adventures of a time-traveling female police officer who suffers a gunshot wound in 2008, and is mysteriously transported back to 1981. The soundtrack for the show’s first season is appropriately retro, offering up one of the better U.K.-themed, early-'80s pop compilations. Highlights from the 24-track collection include cuts from the Teardrop Explodes (“Reward”), Dexy’s Midnight Runners (“Geno”), Ultravox (“Vienna”), and Joe Jackson (“It’s Different for Girls”).

Two of the most masterful crafters of sophisticated art rock united on stage for a series of special live engagements in 2005, Joe Jackson and Todd Rundgren.