IT'S BETTER THAN DRINKIN' ALONE: The Official ILM Track-by-Track BILLY JOEL Listening Thread

for god's sake, don't shut earnestness out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDjFI3kbxuo

Modern Woman, the album's lead single, peaked at #10 (#7 Adult contemporary) with some Top 40 performance elsewhere. It was also featured in the Midler/DeVito/ZAZ comedy Ruthless People; if you want a bit of the spirit of that, this fan-video combines a teeny bit of footage from the movie with "live in the studio" footage from the promotional featurette Building the Bridge and wackily sped-up clips from the "Matter of Trust" video. Reportedly disliked by Joel, it was not featured on Greatest Hits III and thus not anthologized until the My Lives box set.

I've never heard it until now and it's... kinda neat!

Really? It stinks. The synth set my teeth on edge as much as the condescension.

This sounds like everything that is generally hated about big 80s big pop/rock production: shrill, ugly and impersonal.

Haha maybe I'm hearing it as something funkier and weirder than it is because it seems like such a left turn from Billy. When it started up in my headphones I was like "is he trying to do a Was (Not Was) song??"

wow this is some terrible shit, like Police Academy 3: Back in Training soundtrack garbage, though it's good to hear this stuff as an antidote to 80s nostalgia, because this was what a lot of the shit actually was, dudes with terrible glasses jumping around behind Yamaha keyboards wearing knockoff Sonny Crockett clothes.... probably the my least favorite song so far

I know we're not there yet, but like I did eight albums ago, I'm calling foreshadowing:

https://i.imgur.com/OHQzPOw.gif

For a taste of how execrable mid '80s soundtracks could be, check out Mick Jagger's collaboration with Daryl Hall (!) and David Stewart for the same movie. It was supposed to be the hit (it wasn't).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cohCR3rUh0

one of those times where weird al's parody instincts and read on the charts of the original song seem to have failed him

https://i.imgur.com/WZRYWkR.gif

Rock and roll just used to be for kicks / And nowadays it's politics / And after 1986 what else could be new

the lyric, i mean... he's trying to extend his givin'-advice schtick but obviously his feminism is incompletely formed and the woman is seen entirely as Other whose significance is as a quest object for the rather hopeless-sounding protag. taken out of context, this is kind of otm tho as a description of masculine insecurity in the face of a woman who doesn't require him or his jumbled readings of her appearance ("the quiet type who's into heavy metal"??):

You want to make a move
But you feel so inferior
Cause under that exterior
Is someone who's free

The Heat Is Not Quite On

actually, this does sound like he's aping Howard Jones.

I'm almost willing to concede he went for a little Steely Dan tone on the bridge @ 1:55

Didn't work out the same.

i like that little sax break @1:55. and then when the piano comes back in, alone, for two bars i think maybe he's about to break into "on broadway" or something. i haven't seen "ruthless people" in a long time but i remember quite enjoying it. i bet they paid a good amount of cash for this sync. this may be the most '80s thing ever. not quite as terrible as i remembered it. but pretty close.

I can't find the video, but I distinctly remember this song playing over the Moonlighting episode where Maddie Hayes gets into an elevator wearing her neon-colored Reebok hightops.

True story: as a kid, Billy Joel and Moonlighting-era Bruce Willis used to remind me greatly of each other. I'm pretty sure Die Hard is what put an end to that.

Man, if Billy had starred in Die Hard...

Someone please write a Glimpses-style speculative sci-fi novel imagining an alternate history where Billy was offered, and took, Die Hard and Bruce did Oliver and Co. and how the landscape of popular culture (and the world?) would look now as a result.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/81/BruceWillis_-_ReturnOfBruno.jpg

True story: as a kid, Billy Joel and Moonlighting-era Bruce Willis used to remind me greatly of each other. I'm pretty sure Die Hard is what put an end to that.

― iCloudius (cryptosicko),

"Big Man on Mulberry Street" also used.

https://i.imgur.com/NMjpBZN.jpg

Ooh, pitch for a road movie: Billy and Bruce. Car breaks down in Vegas and they go on the road, etc., etc.

I never thought about the parallels in their careers. "tough guy" image, started in NYC, huge commercial success but not much critical, terribly misguided ventures into each other's fields of art

In what universe is Billy a tough guy?

Maybe you mean because he wears sunglasses?

It's part of the image he's tried to put on, maybe not consistently. The wild boys were his friends, he ran with a dangerous crowd, etc

amateur boxing, walking through Bed-Stuy alone, riding a motorcycle (in the rain, even!)...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfH2e9EYeQA

Baby Grand, the first of two duets with "We Are the World" co-singers, closes out the first side. Released as the fourth and final single from the album, it peaked at #75 (Adult Contemporary #3). Outside of the US it seems to have only gotten released in Australia (where it peaked at #78). The video is about what you'd expect.

Apart from some revealing comments on "A Matter of Trust," this song occupies the bulk of Billy's attention when reflecting on the album thirty years later. The short version is that, in this account, Ray Charles had asked Quincy Jones to ask Phil Ramone about performing a Billy Joel song. "And when he comes into the room, you know. He looks exactly like Ray Charles. It's overwhelming, like the Washington Monument walking into your house."

https://img.discogs.com/TDMckIa-Iflz2NfMeV9m5JzJ3LY=/fit-in/596x596/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-2568636-1298581651.jpeg.jpg

https://img.discogs.com/lxnRE-TCZpjCxl38CoEBFUjQqw4=/fit-in/576x578/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-2568636-1298581670.jpeg.jpg

These attempts are often embarrassments. "Baby Grand" is not.

also: a far superior piano-as-metaphor than goddamn "Ebony and Ivory."

Yeah, this is nice! The most focused Billy's felt to me on this album, and the Charles-by-numbers writing and arrangement is the right call... makes it sound both like a 70s Billy Joel record, and like a minor Charles single from his first heyday. Anyway, if you have Ray Charles in the studio, you get out of the way and let him do what he's good at, and boy does he sound good on this.

It's an alright song. I agree it harks back to 70's Billy, but I don't think it has the same memorability. I've heard this song at least a dozen times, since I own Vol 3, but the only line that really sticks out to me is the "minor keys" one. The melody isn't that sticky either. But I will admit it sounds nice when it's playing, classy even

Modern Woman = I don't think I can do this anymore

Song is def a 70s Billy throwback...nice but inessential....

Ray Charles sounds great on this, hey speaking of American icons you probably don't want to learn too much about. My old boss used to work concert promotion for 20 years and I was surprised that Ray was the musician she names as the worst she'd worked with, guess really verbally abusive and called her the "c word" in dressing her down in front of everyone, she said she wanted to punch the old man.

Ray's presence slightly redeems this, but otherwise this reminds me too much of those horrible "standards" albums that Rod Stewart and other fading boomer-age stars were recording a decade or so back that the record store I used to work at played incessantly during the morning shifts.

"modern woman" is so garish i almost admire it

in fact i actually really like the chorus

not that i don't completely understand everyone's horrified reactions

also i love the bassline

"baby grand" is lovely but i've also already forgotten it completely

i like the little back-and-forth asides, which are as warm as a christmas sweater.

ray: aighht?
billy: alright!

billy: (singing) they say no one's play this on the radio
ray: (speaking) wuhhh? i don't believe it, billy

i like when billy goes into ray voice overdrive ("the life ISTRAYEDIN").

a minor piece of work but such a labor of love. can't help but smile.

In my imaginary world, I've been ragging on Billy for doing his weird Ray Charles imitations when he could've just been singing in his normal voice. To which he hands me his bottle of Budweiser and says, "Hold my beer. I'll be right back."

And then pulls in Marshall McLuhan from the side - o wait.

No, he pulls it off. How could he not with Ray Fucking Charles right there with him.

While I'm being proven wrong, I'll also mention how for some reason, this song has always reminded me of "Hot Burrito #1". If I knew a little bit more about chords, progressions, and song structures, I might have been able to back up whatever it is I'm talking about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6u8GnHTiuJk

Big Man on Mulberry Street opens side two with the aid of a small team of veteran jazz players. Joel has described the big-shot-zinging lyric as self-clowning: leaving his rehearsal studio, he'd settle at local dining establishments with a notebook open, playing the part of a songwriter but totally stuck for material. Moonlighting fans may recall it as the soundtrack for a long choreographed dream sequence.

An extended version of the song was used on a season three episode of Moonlighting. The episode was also titled "Big Man on Mulberry Street". In a dream sequence, Maddie Hayes envisions David Addison's history with his ex-wife, presented as an elaborate dance sequence with no dialogue; Sandahl Bergman was the main dancer. An extra horn solo was added to the song.

I hear this one and think Oh cool, maybe Chris Elliot will be on.

The Joel/Willis connection continues.

As for the song itself: whatever he's doing with his voice here has got to stop.

Yeah, moonlighting made me get this album and I totally regretted it later

Catching up:

omg I had totally forgotten about this song until now. it must have had a lot of radio play in Australia bcz i know all the words & i am sure i haven’t heard it since then.

anyway i like it - more for the sound & movement of the music, and the cadence of the lyrics than the lyrical content itself. the keyboard is like a sped-up “On Broadway” somehow & i dig it

Baby Grand: how can you not love a Ray & Billy duet. Lovely stuff <3
but also pplains otm, i admit my inner alarm bell went off when i first heard Billy “doing” Ray in the opening lines like DUDE WTF ARE U DOING


Big Man on Mulberry St: omg this album is flashback city for me holy crap. i remember that Moonlightimg episode!!! As soons as i heard the song i remrmbered Bruce dancing. so obv i love it because young dancing Bruce is <3 <3.

*Modern Woman should be at the top there oops