Rickie Lee Jones - Pirates

Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab used the original quarter-inch analog master tapes to master this classic 1981 album.

"Rickie Lee Jones' Pirates arrives like a cloudburst in the desert of Eighties formula pop music and recycled heavy-metal rock." So wrote Stephen Holden in Rolling Stone in his five-star review of the eclectic artist's sophomore record, a 1981 set that continues to defy eras and styles.

Accompanied by an all-star lineup that includes trumpeter Randy Brecker, Steely Dan icon Donald Fagen, session pro Victor Fedlman and legendary jazz arranger Ralph Burns, the singer-songwriter achieves a musical nirvana that encompasses post-bop, coffeehouse folk, bohemian pop, romantic soul, Beat poetry and Broadway show tunes. Albums with this kind of stylistic magnitude, close-up intimacy and emotional intensity come around only once or so a decade.