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

I mean, yeah: Michelle, ma belle, you smell. Big deal:

Je recherche l'affection
Qu'une autre pourrait me donner
Mais apres tout
Je sais qu'il n'y a personne
Personne qui puisse me sauver
Tu etais la seule

It doesn't even rhyme. How cool is that! Oh, maybe I'd better just translate that on the next verse.

Dude, he's a populist. His skill as a lyricist is that he knows what emotional state he's trying to sell and how to swagger it where it needs it so that people identify with it. "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints" - Shakespeare it ain't but it's memorable and it's perfectly appropriate for the song's character and situation.

I like Billy Joel's lyrics. Not all of them, certainly, but enough to count. They're simple, and they invite easy identification. They pick out the emotions in big bold strokes, the rhymes and rhythms underlined in red so you can sing along at home. They cut a little, maybe, but never too deep. That's not such a bad thing.

I love "Miami 2017", for instance. It's a juvenile apocalypse, drunk on romantic rebellion and defeat, a blur of places and names dipped in cheap cynicism and set alight. Whatever the fuel, it roars right along, the verses always ending on an open 'oh', 'ah' or 'ee' so he (we) can wantonly belt the Big Note to the stars. It's a fun song, engagingly clever without being terribly insightful, subtle or even particularly honest. It's a fantasy of youthful war against vast powers, of survival in the bombed-out remains. But what of it? Sometimes a megaphone and a match do the job just fine.

It reminds me of two other, more generally well-respected songs that I like in a similar way: Leonard Cohen's "First We Take Manhattan" and Talking Heads' "Life During Wartime". I guess I'm a sucker for doomy, paranoid and slightly hysterical rebel fantasies. The edge on Joel's satirical knife might be a little dull, relatively speaking, but the general gist and tone aren't too far off. And Billy beat them guys to the punch by a matter of years.

Richly OTM.

Yeah, except the Leonard Cohen and Talking Heads song have menacing music that matches the lyrical mode. They're not some hoaky serenade set to some ersatz Elton boilerplate. Maybe if you're totally immersed in Joel's lyrics I'd theoretically concede your point, but the Leonard Cohen and Heads songs are both funnier and scarier. They sound like the world is ending as you're listening, and they're singing as the ship goes down. Miami 2017 sounds like some "we can do it!" celebration crossed with a nightly entertainment news theme.

It's the death blow of the middle of the road. Even when you win, you lose.

Dude, he's a populist. His skill as a lyricist is that he knows what emotional state he's trying to sell and how to swagger it where it needs it so that people identify with it. "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints" - Shakespeare it ain't but it's memorable and it's perfectly appropriate for the song's character and situation.

Shakespeare is a populist FYI. You don't have to be terrible to be a populist.

I don't give a shit about lyrics. Dude writes irresistable tunes, just like Elton.

[/geir]

"Irresistible"

http://www.doctormacro.com/Images/Lugosi,%20Bela/Annex/Annex%20-%20Lugosi,%20Bela%20(Mark%20of%20the%20Vampire)_02.jpg

you just sit and home and masturbaaaate

They both play the piano, but I don't hear many similarities between Elton John and Billy Joel.

they're both kinda ugly

yeah i mean the comparison between them is purely that they were the two big piano-playing solo stars of the same era, nothing more nothing less, right? that said, i'd enjoy catching one of those tours they've done together.

I saw one. Sucked.

Their careers form an hourglass too: Joel started selling records during Elton's late seventies slump, then both enjoyed an MTV resurgence.

billy joel or elton john. Who really sucks the most?

It's weird because the most prominent time where I put them is in the mid-90s, having to collate advertising brochures in a warehouse while listening to Top 40 radio play "River of Dreams" interchanged with "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" every hour.

There's not really any solo artist that can touch Elton's early 70's period. Billy Joel beats Elton when comparing their late 70's/early 80's periods. Mid 90's BJ craps all over EJ's mid 90's from a mile up.

I do want to amend my previous comments about later Joel - - I actually quite like "River of Dreams" (though it overstays its welcome) and I am a rare defender of "We Didn't Start The Fire" just for being REALLY REALLY REALLY fun to sing although objectively not a good song on many levels. I just think neither of them helps Billy Joel, and both would be better as weird one-hit wonder songs by bands you never heard of. He should have gone the Chris Gaines route and put out singles as... Jilly Boel or something.

There's not really any solo artist that can touch Elton's early 70's period.

gtfo

http://www.bigozine2.com/MP308/JMparis/JMparisBk.jpg

not to mention:

Paul Simon
Al Green
Bill Withers
Cohen

I prefer Elton's mid seventies to the early seventies.

Rod Stewart came close to Elton John's early '70s chart domination, didn't he?

Discussion was about the supposed hourglass career thing right, so yeah, I think Elton probably beats all of those for consistent single and album sales in that period (though not sure about Al Green?).

I think I may actually be swinging "Uptown Girl," god is it hook-laden and boy is it the perfect conclusion to my hastily sketched Billy Joel metanarrative above - - not only does he finally get the girl, he finally LIKES the girl, even though she is an uptown big-shot kind of girl, like he seems to have maybe gotten over his bullshit a little.

And I mean, Frankie Valli is awesome, why not make some more Four Seasons songs?

I don't hear many similarities between Elton John and Billy Joel.

both have some of the worst, cringe-inducing, painful-to-listen to lyrics ever

Ehhhh, lotta days I'll take a good hack over a great poet.

hey give Elton John some credit...he didn't write those lyrics

well sure, but it's sort of unbelievable that anyone would pay someone else to write such shitty lyrics. Bernie Taupin's appeal eludes me

I can totally get with Elton's melodicism, but when I listen to what he's singing it makes me want to smash my stereo

kinda the same with Joel altho I think he's much weaker in the melodies dept. I find his proto-doo wop stuff the catchiest.

lol Taupin's best known non-EJ lyric is "We Built This City"

starship really had to go get outside help for that one huh.

fuckin lyrics
how do they work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnrSqZwT2pg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uqg2rClfLIc&feature=related

Now you're posting Weird Al videos. Billy Joel wins again, my friend.

You'd better cool it off before you burn it out. You've got so much to do and only so many hours in a day.

lol Taupin's best known non-EJ lyric is "We Built This City"

and "These Dreams"!

hm, news to me!

good weird al vids

the deal with Bernie Taupin is he's kind of like what if language poetry met popular song. the only matter of import is whether the syllables sound awesome together when delivered by a good frontman, which they do. I don't doubt that if he put his mind to it, he could write a lyric consisting only of nonsense syllables that sounded good to him, and it'd still sound terrific once Elton John got hold of it.

He did, and that song was called "Nikita." It was terrible.

"Solar Prestige a Gammon"!

Taupin could write good lyrics when it suited him ("Hard Luck Stories," "Someone Saved...") but Elton didn't demand them.

so Bernie Taupin is like proto-Elizabeth Fraser

Yeah, except the Leonard Cohen and Talking Heads song have menacing music that matches the lyrical mode. They're not some hoaky serenade set to some ersatz Elton boilerplate.

i know, i was defending joel's lyrics against aero's "worst lyricist of all time" slam. personally, i like his tunes too. "menacing" can be great, but i can't imagine that "miami 2017" would be any more appealing if they were less cheesily anthemic.

i have no real problem with taupin as a lyricist, either. a lot of his stuff is cringe-inducingly schmaltzy, sure, but sometimes the shmaltz just plain works. i've always found "daniel" quite moving, and that's a product of the lyrics as much as of the music and performance.

^ not to say that i really admire taupin as a lyricist...

nor billy neither

In Praise Of... Billy Joel's "Miami 2017 (Seen The Lights Go Down On Broadway)"

Even though it's not on the greatest hits, "Summer Highland Falls" is my POO. I don't think he ever did something that good again--almost a one-off sadly. Songs in the Attic and Turnstiles (as well as The Stranger) are my go-to Billy.