Search And Destroy: Billy Joel

SEARCH: "Uptown Girl," the part in the Simpsons that features "Uptown Girl," "We Didn't Start the Fire," "Tell Her About It," "Piano Man," "Pressure," "The Longest Time," and "My Life"

DESTROY: that "ack ack ack ack" song, "Captain Jack"

His early stuff like "Captain Jack" and "Piano Man" is heinous '70s pop at its absolute nadir. This is why rock and roll is about guitars, not pianos, fuck pianos. "My Life" and "You May Be Right" are two of the most damning indictments of the yuppie generation I've ever heard, and I think the couplet "Don't get me wrong/I still belong" is as close to the true work of the Devil as my atheist soul is ever gonna hear.

what?

DESTROY: everything he's done since. When he married Christie, he probably didn't realize they were the perfect real-life incarnation of Brenda and Eddie. She must have sucked up most of Billy's creative juices, because his albums from "The Bridge" onwards were inexplicably bad by any standard. The one exception, of course, is "Kontsert".

"Ain't it wonderful to be alive when the rock'n'roll plays?"

Also Search songs like "Vienna" and "Only the Good Die Young", a song that he was threatened with DEATH for writing.

Something did happen to him once he married Christie Brinkley (the story about meeting her in a bar in Jamica and serendading her, Elle MacPherson, and Whitney Houston with piano songs is great.) The only song past 1984 that's any good would be "A Matter of Trust" which, as one person pointed out on another thread, has one of the strongest count-in's of any other rock song.

because he physically looks too much like an ugly Michael Keaton

I always thought that he looked like an ugly Joe Torre.

And I've said it before, but it's worth repeating how much I love that oft-dissed & dismissed Attila album!

What's the corollary? A *handsome* Billy Joel?

Maybe I'm too drunk at the moment to deal with these convolutions.

The man hath not an ounce of talent in his entire being.

Guilty pleasure: "For the Longest Time," his Doo Wop number, mid-'80s?

Not as you define it, evidently.

http://www.thevillager.com/villager_12/billy.jpg

http://www.oakridgeboys.com/Media/Boys_Billy_Joel.jpeg

Look, all I'm saying is that some of you all's anger could probably be placed somewhere else.

Billy Joel - Oh, the squandered genius!

D: "We Didn't Start..."

(I did think that it was weird that she was talking about "twenty years ago".)

Hi. Jody (not Beth) Rosen here. As it happens, no, I don't think Elvis is above the criticisms I level at Joel. He's even more pretentious in some respects, and even more of a promiscuous genre-hopping hack, particularly in the post-1980 phase of his career. I mainly invoked Costello in the piece in the context of my embarrassing high school epiphany, when the scales were lifted from my eyes and I realized how monstrously wack it was to worship Billy Joel.

I could go on for hours about Costello's problems -- biggest problem: despite his exalted reputation, his lyrics are pretty atrocious -- but I do think it's pretty inarguable that EC made AT LEAST four fantastic albums (I can think of eight that I love); AND he does have a certain toughness about him, at least on the early albums; AND he was an original, at least back in '77-'79. Whereas Joel has always been derivative and gauche.

Do love BJ's tunes, though -- esp. "Movin' Out." (Also, Billy's "Sometimes a Fantasy" is my third favorite Cars song.)

I'd add this:

- My biggest problem with Costello's lyrics is that they're suffocatingly pseudo-poetical. The guy just can't say anything straight. (Notice that when he comes close to simplicity -- e.g., "I Want You" -- it's great.) The lyrics mostly worked on the first several albums, because they were just plain sharper, and more evocatively ambiguous. But they've gotten increasingly baroque and pretentious and just plain crap. Of course, on the best records the the lyrics don't really matter because his tunes are so great, and most importantly, because he has Bruce and Pete Thomas playing the shit out everything. Those guys are GODS.