Say Goodbye To POLLywood - Billy Joel Greatest Hits Volume I & Volume II, THE POLL

i am all about the video for uptown GYUHRRHURRLLL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCuMWrfXG4E

SHE'S GOT HER TOYS!

ftr i believe ilx house band the fake accents/fake accidents/etc was once kicked up/downstairs at a gig due to said joel offspring

the only thing I have to say about Allentown is

CHHHH
OOH
HAH

I bought Innocent Man tonight :D

Bob River's had a hilarious "twisted tunes" spoof of that song when it was a hit, with spot-on vocal inflection: An Ignorant Man

I like a bunch of Billy Joel singles, but I think "Only the Good Die Young" might be his only fully defensible song.

Glass Houses is one of the first few albums I ever bought, and a sentimental favorite, but I think my vote is for Scenes From An Italian Restaurant, which kind of reminds me of Styx if they'd been from Bensonhurst.

"You're Only Human" video... at 2'08"... he's young, he's ginger, he's pasty... Adam "Mythbusters" Savage:

http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/98kool.com/files/2011/04/Adam-Savage.jpg

hooray!

I owned a copy of the Stranger way back when. He was great as a 12 / 13 year old boy but by 14, he was done. Had to turn him over to the girls. Voted for Only the Good Die Young.

This poll is so impossible, VG. Seeeeeeriously.

i know right? why do you think I made my sister vote for me?

I mean even moreso than Paul Simon's back catalogue I grew up on this - with Simon it was just Graceland until I was much older, but this thing is just a massive wallop of great songs. Our version was all packed onto one cassette - although it did not have Entertainer, She's Got A Way, or Italian Restaurant! - and I knew them all inside and out, every word, even though I had many of these words wrong and did not have any idea what half of the songs were really about except for mood and attitude. "Dom Perignon in your hand and the spoon up your nose," who knows wtf that means but I understood the idea of someone who had to be a BEEG SHOT. Agreed with whoever said it all seemed very adult and grownuppy - - - but I never listened to Joel as any kind of secret forbidden fruit or consciously trying to get a window into adulthood because the stuff is SO RIDICULOUSLY HOOKY. Kid's show theme song hooky, but better.

I like Joel more than anything because I like singing along to his songs, even when his lyrical persona seems to be kind of an enormous asshole. Loved the point about Captain Jack - I'm not so into the feel of the song and the audience he seems to be playing to and the opinion he seems to have himself but what a chorus!

Could write whole pointless threads on some of these songs. (I in fact did quixotically start one for "Miami 2017"...) Like, how great of a phrase is "Say Goodbye To Hollywood"? How many moments in my life has that kind of actually seemed like just about the right description for where I was? It helps that Joel wasn't afraid to be cheesy or go for those big-impact grabs. I think this more than anything has held him off from reappraisal... goofy balding nebbish Phil Collins, much as I like him, didn't swing for the bleachers and you have less to lose liking his stuff.

The amazing thing is I don't know if he has a single record I like all the way through, though Glass Houses and The Stranger come close. I should spin 52nd Street some more. An Innocent Man has some great shit, but all of a sudden the guitar songs seem really forced and canned ("Easy Money," my god) and it's kind of hard to put it on a lot.

wow, this is getting tl;dr and I haven't really said anything!

Greatest Hits - Volume I & Volume II has been certified double diamond by the RIAA, selling over 11.5 million copies (23 million units) and is tied with Pink Floyd's The Wall and Led Zeppelin's Led Zeppelin IV for third most certified album of all time in the U.S (wiki)

hellfire!

Alec: You cannot have the Pretenders' first album! That's mine.
Leslie: I bought it.
Alec: You did not! You can have all the Billy Joels... except The Stranger.
Leslie: I'm taking Thriller and Mahler's ninth.
Alec: ..You're not taking The Police...

etc..

(from St Elmo's Fire)

see even 80's yuppie kids who hated him still liked The Stranger.

"Here put these on."
*listens* "What is this?"
"The Stranger. It'll change your life."

(Oh, and hey Doc?)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v386/DickSteele/Smileys/Fistbump-2.gif

haha, back atcha

Movin' Out narrowly over Allentown

Not to stick my nose too high in the air, but I never could get into this compilation. Billy Joel's album tracks run so deep that cherry-picking "Just the Way You Are" off of The Stranger for example doesn't do his catalogue justice.

The Today Show had a full week of interviews with Billy Joel when this comp came out, with the highlight being the world premiere of HIS NEW VIDEO.

My heart dropped a little the first time I saw "You're Only Human (Second WInd)" and even though "Matter of Trust" was the jam later on, it was around this time that I started moving toward the Beatles and metal.

Does Billy Joel have worthwhile album tracks? Serious question. Elton def does.

Well, if Sometimes a Fantasy or Sleeping w/the Television On or She's Right On Time were options here, it would be a lot tougher. xp

Yes, Alfred. He's got some filler, but I'd say there's usually around four songs on each album that never gets play just as quality as the singles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaSbplT9O6c

Well, if Sometimes a Fantasy or Sleeping w/the Television On or She's Right On Time were options here, it would be a lot tougher. xp

Is this a good place to talk about my sick fascination with "Close To The Borderline?"

Everytime I walk down an alley, I hear that riff.

"The bag ladies throw their bones in my face."

xp not at all! I always loved that song just for using the phrase "a buck three-eighty," which was one my dad used to use as well. (Must be an NY thing.)

Enjoying listening to An Innocent Man

'Christie Lee' is a bit of a bung note for me. That's about the only one so far.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70trlkdNtLw

"moonlighting" did an opening to that too.

I think Joel despises "Modern Woman" – he says so often.

re: worthwhile album tracks, "Laura" is the jam, which I wouldn't have recalled had it not been for Chuck Klosterman's two Billy Joel profiles..

for me, a lot of his album tracks were just as ubiquitous from grammar school throughout high school.. there was a point when I was ready to kill the next kid in music class who would bust into the "Angry Young Man" piano intro.. I also used to love "Root Beer Rag" which I can no longer listen to.

a lot of the best ones appear on "Songs In The Attic" and sound better than the original versions, ie "Miami 2017" and "Los Angelenos," although "The Ballad of Billy the Kid" is kinda painful.. "Travelin' Prayer" is aight... I think Dolly Parton covered it or something.

IMO any of these could have just as easily fit onto his greatest hits just as well as Goodnight Saigon.

In the old Columbia House ads, there was always a † next to Nylon Curtain because the word "fucking" is used in "Laura". Billy Joel badass.

Nobody in my class listened to Billy Joel. I'm not sure even how I got started on him. One of my fondest memories though is being in 4th grade and holding hands with a girl named Susan underneath a table in the back of the room, listening to "Honesty" while everyone else was out at recess.

yeah maybe it's the teenager in me but "feeling like a fucking fool" is my favorite part of that song

also he sounds more pissed off than usual in that one... which for Billy Joel is "really pissed off"

As album titles go, Nylon Curtain has got to be up there with some of the bad ones. Just seems kinda, ill-advised.

He had just divorced his first wife (the one "Just the Way You Are" is about) and apparently, she got her fair share of "Just the Way You Are" royalties.

It wasn't long after Nylon Curtain that he made Christie Brinkley in some piano bar in the Caribbean. He was serenading her, Elle Macpherson and WHITNEY HOUSTON.

After that night, he started dating … ELLE MACPHERSON. It wouldn't be later that he'd be all "oh, hey, what's up Christie Lee?" </player>

The Hassles album is on Youtube as one complete video.... hm.. well if you can find "Just Holding On" by The Hassles, I like that one also. (way better than Attila IMO)

I didn't know that he dated Elle McPherson. Damn.

actually it's only at 1:41 into this...
I think this was Billy Joel's first album that he appeared on
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsT7aHhCHbU

Oh yeah, Songs In The Attic is definitely worth it for those curious about album-track Joel. I would add that version of "Everybody Loves You Now."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qSNcgJtqzw

Great thing too is that basically every Joel album through An Innocent Man is piled up in vinyl dollar bins nationwide so you're not out much.

I dunno if it was the AMG review impressing upon me early on that Nylon Curtain was his VERY SERIOUS album but I've somehow never been able to really go for it. Bit of a chore last time I put it on, but also I have crappy speakers right now and basically everything sounds awful so who knows.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-hasnt-told-coworkers-about-his-billy-joel,1582/

It gets its reputation for being VERY SERIOUS thanks to Side 1, but it gets loose on Side 2 with "Room of Our Own" (should be played at every wedding) and "She's Right on Time".

Another piece of trivia: Brinkley's only the second-hottest woman to appear in a Billy Joel video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4lh4Ahl46E&ob=av2n

oh god his singing on "Modern Woman" defines "prostrate operation"

and btw, wow, I have never gotten around to checking out the Hassles before, kind of amazing. Definitely more listenable than Attila, but that doesn't really take much.

http://www.amoeba.com/dynamic-images/blog/Chad/niceprice.jpg

Re: "Modern Woman," there's got to be something to be said of a Billy Joel song so horrible even Billy Joel hates it.

What's always bugged me about this dude was his bitterness, like he truly believed at heart he was better than middlebrow and hated himself for getting rich without ever shirking that albatross. He's like an inexplicably angry little Springsteen wannabe who sees himself a street fighter poet but who others see as a safe joke. Or maybe that's just what the alcohol did to him

I don't think Billy Joel has ever tried to put on airs to be a street fighter poet, at least since The Stranger. He doesn't seem to take himself that seriously.

Check this out where Joel sounds more like 1975 Bruce than Bruce does.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78qF8haa3mo

and this. just this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZq5hy2RsvM