Jailbreak is the sixth studio album by Irish hard rock band Thin Lizzy. It was released on 26 March 1976, by Vertigo Records in the UK, and Mercury Records in the US. The album proved to be the band's commercial breakthrough in the US, and the only Thin Lizzy album with a certification (in this case, Gold) in that country. The singles taken from the album include "Jailbreak" and "The Boys Are Back in Town"; the latter is Thin Lizzy's biggest US hit, and won the 1976 NME Award for Best Single.
Composition and recording
After their previous two albums, Nightlife and Fighting, failed to generate sales, Thin Lizzy were given one last chance by their label, Vertigo Records. The band wrote songs and collected ideas in a studio in Buckinghamshire in late 1975, then convened at Ramport Studios in London in the new year. They selected John Alcock as their producer, for he had worked in the studio extensively. The band worked diligently through February on the album. However, guitarists Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson felt that the speed at which it was completed adversely affected its quality. Both stated that the tightness of the songs made the album feel rigid. In particular, Robertson said he would have liked more freedom to improvise his lead guitar parts. Gorham also criticized Alcock's production, saying that he did not particularly care for his guitar tone on the album.
"When I wrote 'Warriors'…" frontman and songwriter Phil Lynott remarked in 1976, "the only way I could give any sense of heavy drug takers was by describing them as warriors; that they actually go out and do it. People like Hendrix and Duane Allman were perfectly aware of the position they were getting into. They weren't slowly being hooked. It was a conscious decision to go out and take the thing as far as it can go."
Initially, the song "Running Back" was chosen to be a single ahead of "The Boys Are Back in Town", the latter being seen as possibly too aggressive for some radio stations to play. Lynott and producer John Alcock decided to employ session musicians to add more commercial elements to some of the tracks and try to produce a hit single, so Tim Hinkley was brought in to add keyboard parts to "Running Back". Robertson was against the idea, as he liked the song as it had originally been arranged, in a blues format with his own additions of piano and bottleneck guitar. He later said, "I took enormous offence to [the changes]. I couldn't understand why they'd pay this guy a fortune just for playing what he did. Listen to it and tell me it's not bollocks." Thirty-five years later, Robertson recorded his own versions of the song on his 2011 album Diamonds and Dirt.
Scott Gorham also revealed that "Romeo and the Lonely Girl" was also brought up as an option for a single, but was ultimately discarded, as "nobody was overexcited about it."
| rev2 = Christgau's Record Guide
| rev2Score = B−
| rev3 = Classic Rock
| rev3Score =
| rev4 = Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal
| rev4Score = 9/10
|rev5 = Pitchfork
|rev5score = 9.1/10
Village Voice critic Robert Christgau likened the album's songs to Bruce Springsteen cast-offs, finding Lynott's lyrical ideas "boring" and Gorham's guitar lines "second-hand". Stuart Bailie of Classic Rock magazine referred back to Christgau's appraisal, writing that both Springsteen and Lynott "were indebted to Van Morrison and his Celtic soul", and remarked how on Jailbreak "Lynott's best attributes were coming on strong."
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! scope="col"| Chart (2019)
! scope="col"| Peak<br /> position
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Year-end charts
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! scope="col" | Chart (1976)
! scope="col" | Position
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! scope="row" | UK Albums (OCC)
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! scope="row" | US Billboard 200
| 77
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