Billy Joel C/D?

so in frustration he threw his piano.

Those old Yamaha electrics weigh a fucking ton. Billy Joel could just pick any of our little asses up and throw us through a wall.

It's been another Joely week for me - my lady acquaintance made me put on Glass Houses and everyone in the apartment was really feeling it. Today, Songs In The Attic. Maybe his best album? The live performances really knock some juice into the songs, and the largely-obscure setlist means that it's never thrown out of balance by huge singles you've heard too many times. See also my 'Miami 2017' thread. I kinda wish I was drunk right now though.

Songs in the Attic still feeling like the winner in this marathon. Just listened to 52nd Street straight through the first time in a decade at least. The first side is rock-solid ("Big Shot," "My Life," "Zanzibar") but the second really starts to wander after "Stiletto." "Until The Night" just kills everything dead. "52nd Street" itself is a decent Randy Newman pastiche though.

Still got a special spot for "Rosalinda's Eyes," so Side 2's cause isn't lost yet.

I freaking love Rosalinda's Eyes, the long fade out with that reverb-y cowbell is all time.

Never really exposed to Joel as a kid. I remember my mother telling me when I was young that "Uptown Girl" was an Eric Clapton number.

Only came across him during random job-lot purchases on eBay and I picked up seven of his rekkids for £1 (Streetlight Serenade, The Stranger, Glass Houses, An Innocent Man, Greatest Hits I & II, Storm Front & River of Dreams).

Some good stuff. I don't understand why he's so viciously hated. At the very least, Innocent Man is a fun, joyful album and a few of his others have good moments.

I'd like to think his critical stock is on the rise, it certainly seems too low at the moment.

Of the Joel albums I've heard (quite a few), An Innocent Man is definitely the easiest one to like.

Wonder Woman, you have got me in a spin
Jesus Christ, I can’t believe the shape I’m in
Everything is all mixed up and upside down
Everything is whirling twirling ‘round and round
Oh no no no, whoa, round and round and round

while he's never ever been a critic's darling, i'm not sure his stock is especially low at the moment, and i'm not sure it's due to rise or fall anytime soon. he's one of those rock and roll constants, who's always had plenty of fans in both high and low places, and plenty of haters in both high and low places too. he's reliable that way. i think this assessment from way upthread pretty much nails it:

he's like a director who makes reliable action, hack-ish action movies but is capable of occassionally -- when the mood strikes him -- making a real highbrow film.

― Daniel, Esq., Tuesday, 31 July 2007 01:30 (5 years ago)

i'd edit that somewhat. i'm not sure he's ever made, or tried to make, that highbrow film. rather, at his best (glass houses, an innocent man, the stranger,) maybe turnstiles), he makes great action movies, and at his worst, he does well-made schlock. maybe the nylon curtain had highbrow intentions, i don't know, but basically joel has been proudly middlebrow from the start. he knows how to entertain, and he usually does.

Innocent Man does loving pastiche very well. I've probably said this multiple times throughout this thread, but Nylon Curtain is an excellent LP.

I like the plaintive side of his earlier stuff, anything that sounds like the title song of a movie set in the Upper East Side w/ Jill Clayburgh, like Summer Highland Falls

XP Coming from someone who thinks "Piano Man" is annoying as shit, I never considered "tonic and gin" egregious practice of poetic license. However, annoyingly bad vocal delivery of "Talkin' with Davy who's still in the navy" or "The piano sounds like a carnival" still generates lulz after all these years.

Also xp, the best versions of most of his best deep early songs are on <i>Songs In The Attic</i> which is what makes it (possibly) his best album.

Is Billy Joel the troll, or the NYTimes?

http://i1.nyt.com/images/2013/05/26/magazine/26joel1/26joel1-hpMedium-v2.jpg

I love how that pic conflates Harry & Tonto with Melvin & Howard

NYT is the best source of "Billy Joel is alive and thinks he's well" profiles

Ladies and gentlemen, that right there is a man who doesn't take shit from nobody.

his bulldog is cool.

that picture like 20 posts up though is scary as fuck. he looks like the cryptkeeper.

Great hour-long conversation with Alec Baldwin and Billy Joel:

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/heresthething/2012/jul/30/

http://deadspin.com/dick-vitale-goes-to-billy-joel-concert-tweets-nearly-e-1504135175

Heard "Piano Man" outside of McDonald's this evening. Thought "I could post that on a Billy Joel Songs In the Wild thread, if there were such a thing."

Then, I went inside Kroger and heard "Vienna" - not the most common WMJ song you hear on the supermarket p.a.

Wild indeed.

A NEW YORK STATE OF MIND #PIANOMAN do it Billy J but where is CHRISTIE
9:50 PM - 17 Jan 2014

More interesting than the Cure, Depeche and New Order combined.

Possibly less interesting than Simply Red.

I think Joel was smart to call it a day after River of Dreams, although the great meta-narrative of his artistic life would have been well-served by ending with An Innocent Man.

For a couple of weeks during the christmas period at home about three years ago, I'd get out of bed relatively early, go downstairs and put Glass Houses on the turntable. I enjoyed it, although I can't remember ANYTHING about it these days. Does he have an album that everyone agrees on as his best?

I'm very willing to entertain MoT's notion about Billy Joel compared to New Order, although I'd substitute "better" for more interesting.

Always kinda thought The Stranger was the consensus pick for his best.

a pretty big chunk of his fanbase would rate glass houses as his best. me included.

Glass Houses is clearly the most Billy Joel-y Billy Joel album.

Yeah, all of the above - those two records are the most internally consistent, and Glass Houses maybe moreso, since The Stranger ends on a couple of duds. But, it also has several more super-iconic songs, and the smooth Seventies sound is kind of key to his whole steez IMO. Still think 52nd Street is kinda underrated.

Does he have an album that everyone agrees on as his best?

Don't know how consensus it is, but Nylon Curtain is brilliant.

Still think 52nd Street is kinda underrated.

Yeah, me too, I'm sure I've blabbed on somewhere upthread about how great Rosalinda's Eyes is (that long cowbell fade!)

Wrote on "Movin' Out":

http://thisiheard.blogspot.com/2014/01/billy-joel-movin-out-anthonys-song-1977.html

has anyone else heard the Howard Stern town hall interview with old Bill?

It's pretty good. Audio quality is kinda shitty but it's worth a listen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iyaee97AAlQ

even though he's famous and all, I can't help but think of him as kind of a runtish, underdog guy.

though this appears to have been intended as criticism, this is probably the thing on this thread that billy would most agree with. this is exactly how he talks about himself.

Long profile:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/27/thirty-three-hit-wonder

I'd love to interview this guy.

After reading about the Springsteen/BJ double bill, I looked up the show. Never heard Springsteen croon a standard like this.

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

A roar greeted the opening notes of “Just the Way You Are,” and up in Section 106 I could see some women of a certain age singing along and dabbing their eyes.

When the song was done, Joel turned to the audience and said, “And then we got divorced.”

Love that man.

This article fills me with a mixture of sorrow and rage that even eyewitness atrocity testimony can't match (though, of course, this kind of is eyewitness atrocity testimony).

idk it sounds p awesome to me

Hey, 誤訳侮辱, let me know when you want to go on a really long road trip with me.

That said, "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant" could be the worst possible song to pick as Your Wedding Song.

i was thinking the same thing

That said, "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant" could be the worst possible song to pick as Your Wedding Song.

I had an ex whose parents' wedding first-dance was soundtracked by Freda Payne's Band Of Gold. I think that's worse (if a better song).

I once attended a wedding where the first dance was Who's Sorry Now by Connie Francis.

^^^ winner

Sunny flirted with the idea of walking down the aisle to "Stuck In the Middle With You"

Jokers to the left of me looks at her family,
Jokers to the right, looks at my family...

haha, splendid candidate

lool sunny <3

I've come around on Billy Joel. His tunes are infinitely catchy and the lyrics aren't as vapid as I remember (Uptown Girl, et al excluded). A lot of his stuff touches on real shit like manic-depression, class consciousness, and the death of the American dream. And some of it is pointless but well-produced AOR... listening to his live stuff demonstrates he's also pretty good on the keys, which I can appreciate.

I'm not sure where to put him in my own brain's classification... I feel like I want to compare him to Warren Zevon, although the internet seems to be telling me he's the American Elton John. I don't think Elton's songs are as personal and autobiographical as Billy's...

The early posts on this thread seem pretty extreme. Is he a terrible person IRL or something?

warren zevon isn't a bad comparison. elton john is the obv one ppl go for but i don't think it really hold up beyond the immediate obv similarities, elton's doesn't have nearly the bitterness. the best comparison i've read, the one that haunts me, and it was on ilm was that he's the american elvis costello.