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

Totally gonna blast this from the CRV's speakers Friday afternoons in the parking lot before heading over to Chili's.

Billy's good with these Side 2 blue-collar interludes - "Half a Mile Away" or "Christie Lee" - that usually let off a little steam before heading toward the poignant parting finale.

You know, as late as 1980, American workers were apparently still working this mythical 9 to 5 schedule. It's 8:33 CDT here, just wondering what happened.

... on the way to that PLACE

http://www.gallup.com/poll/175286/hour-workweek-actually-longer-seven-hours.aspx

"hour workweek" sounds more my speed tbqh

Not much to say about the last two. "The Last of the Big Time Spenders" is kind of a dull piano-led piece, while "Weekend Song" is kind of a dull rocker.

On another listen, "Last of the Big Time Spenders" has a little more to it than I thought, but not as much as it needs. Probably also suffering from sequencing - it has enough buildup and affect of reflectiveness to make for a closing track, but as album filler it just feels like texture.

"Weekend Song" obviously could only be album filler... as with some other songs like this, I believe Billy had fun playing it, but his bellowing efforts at soul have always felt forced to me. He's on record as saying he was going for Leon Russell with this, and unfortunately Leon's evident comfort in this kind of material just highlights the strain for BJ. This kind of thing also gives the lie to the idea of this as a "concept album" - unless every song is going to be from a different character's POV or something, presenting both the Entertainer and the Back-Breaker Bone-Shaker in the first person just reminds you of the singer's distance from the actual lived experience of the latter. Better to stay in his observational zone and try to sketch out the lives of those who can't drive with a broken back, from the entertainer's third-person vantage point.

this album...is not very good

and listen, I'm a Timberwolves fan, I have a huge urge to pull for a mix of ill-fitting parts, untapped potential that somehow dangle the promise of being great but comes crashing down to Earth in a big heap

Both really bad at signing contracts.

hahaha

this album...is not very good

harsh truth

hrm seems Flagging ate a post but agreed that this album is underwhelming, gibing with Billy's own statements that it was rushed and underwritten. Roberta is the closest thing to a "discovery" since I already knew I liked The Entertainer and Root Beer Rag.

*spoiler alert* it's definitely underwhelming as an album but i'm a big fan of the last two songs on each side. a little resequencing could've helped this one.

yeah i'm not loving this album much. it's better than Cold Spring Harbor, but that's basically damning with faint praise

I actually think I like CSH more, it's obviously way less polished but it has at least two classic BJ songs in "She's Got A Way" and "Everybody Loves You Now." The rest may be a grab-bag but at least they feel like things he was eagerly waiting to record, rather than forcing out because it was time to hit the studio.

you may be right

:D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gizOUq-QDUg

Souvenir, the last non-instrumental track on the record, is also the shortest, at 2:00. As One Final Serenade reports, in his earlier years, Billy often played "Souvenir" at the end of his concerts and on New Year's Eve. Moreover, it was used in a sentimental scene for the final episode of the television series "How I Met Your Mother."

Perhaps reflecting Billy's fondness for the song, its title had a long afterlife. After The Stranger but before Songs in the Attic, Columbia would issue a promo-only disc entitled Souvenir, presumably in the hopes that radio play might help move some of the back catalog:

https://img.discogs.com/SsVY4xQdqWr56n70PNcpRLuoUvg=/fit-in/600x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-1819521-1362170366-4428.jpeg.jpg

... and then, in 1990, they used the name again as the title for an awkward but succsesful five-disc Australian box set that jammed together a live show, Greatest Hits I & II, a disc of interviews, and... Storm Front. Even Billy looks outraged at this ripoff:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e1/Billy_Joel_-_Souvenir.jpg/220px-Billy_Joel_-_Souvenir.jpg

"souvenir" closed all, or almost, of his shows for years, until he replaced it with "where's the orchestra." it's gorgeous.

*or almost all*

i bought that souvenir promo disc early in my billy fandom and for a long time it was my favorite billy album. a great four-song live set on one side and five early album tracks on the other.

Really nice song & it was really a smart move to make it so brief esp compared to so many songs on this album that are trying way too hard to not do much

"Spenders" and "Weekend Song"... bleh. Really underwritten - I can understand why BJ doesn't think much of this album. "Souvenir" is nice though, especially the opening/closing piano. Agree that the brevity works for it

Like the brevity and the piano, don't like the way he elongates his vowels ("holidaaaaaay," "mementooooos").

"Souvenir" sounds a little Randy Newmanish to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-j_7YKS-7I

The Mexican Connection: a closing instrumental, with a last cameo for that jaunty little Moog. Per One Final Serenade, this recording was often played as opening music at BJ concerts. As well, as we've already seen, it was the B-side to "The Entertainer." It's nice, imho.

If I have time today I might give the whole album a listen straight through, since I've been kind of dogging on it despite liking a number of moments and the overall sound of the recording.

i like this feel like i could hear this behind the opening credits of a dudley moore movie

This is fine, but it really doesn't feel like he had a whole lot of material for this album.

Listening the LP straight through, on my good speakers, it's better than it was a song at a time on Spotify and cheap headphones. Not in the sense that it all adds up to some big statement or coherent piece of music, but just that it's nice to spend a sustained listen with the sound/recording, enjoying some details in the production (e.g. the blurts of organ jamming that show up at the ends of the "rockier" songs). It all sounds good and it's well played if uninspired. That 70s production blanket. In this sense, "Mexican Connection" is a great way to end the album, no vocals to distract you from the warmth of those instruments grooving away in the depths of the studio. A couple of bits almost sound like callbacks to other songs (a snatch of Billy the Kid, followed directly by a zippy Moog run out of The Entertainer) - I wonder if Billy was going for a Band on the Run type ending (or I guess something off Broadway?), with little reprises of several songs to make you think that this was all supposed to fit together more than it does.

Not a really awful place for an artist to come back from... but I'll admit I've spent a lot of the last few days looking ahead to the next album.

"the mexican connection," like "root beer rag," makes me ridiculously happy. a little bit elmer bernstein (again), a little bit "guantanamera," a little bit "where's my moog, i haven't used it in several minutes!" it was indeed his entrance music for a good chunk of the '70s into the early '80s (meaning pretty much all those shows opened and closed with streetlife serenade tracks). it would've been good entrance music for this album, too -- a much better track 1 side 1 than the title song imho.

dead last in this ranking of billy's songs by a guy from vulture who clearly hates instrumentals:

http://www.vulture.com/2015/02/complete-works-121-billy-joel-songs-ranked.html

okay that is straight up crazy! it's a pretty solid instrumental, popped into my head when I was falling asleep last night... he has done MUCH worse, even in the tracks we've reviewed so far!

a little bit "guantanamera,"

More "La Bamba" to my ear

Actually to be fair, upon relistening, this is a richer tune than I remembered. The first and third minutes do quote "Guantanamera." The "La Bamba" riff doesn't appear until 1:06, then repeats at 1:12 and 2:25.

There's some faux-Copland too, around 2:13.

http://www.onefinalserenade.com/uploads/2/9/1/2/2912571/6380273_orig.jpg https://img.discogs.com/ptOARdRxcRIAlUHfnhiDkeywWjM=/fit-in/600x596/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-427787-1386435222-5850.jpeg.jpg

Turnstiles, despite a troubled birth and dismal chart performance, marks something of a creative turning point for Billy Joel. It began the Rocky Mountain way, with sessions helmed by Chicago impresario and erstwhile Beach Boy affiliate James William Guercio, at his Caribou Ranch studio. Recently-dismissed Elton John Band members Nigel Olsson and Dee Murray were involved, but very little information on these sessions exists online. The story goes that Billy was dissatisfied with the results and insisted on re-recording the album with his recently-assembled touring band - though given that he was a third-tier artist at best, I have to assume he had some champion at the label backing him up on this decision. As far as I can tell, the Guercio sessions have never been leaked or released, though the album jacket still credits "overdubs" at Caribou.

Anyway, a new set of sessions was undertaken at Ultra-Sonic Studios in Hempstead, Long Island (notwithstanding Billy's relocation to Manhattan) in early 1976. They were produced by Joel himself, with engineer John Bradley and "basic track consulting" by Billy's live engineer Brian Ruggles. The core band was Billy, with Doug Stegmeyer on bass and Liberty DeVitto on drums; they are joined by Richie Cannata on sax, with guitar parts performed by Howie Emerson, Russell Javors, and James Smith. Nearly all of these characters had been playing together in the band Topper, and on Turnstiles and even moreso on the following album, the LA lite-rock and country brushstrokes of previous record are replaced with the sound of a tight, versatile, gigging rock band, ready to play "Los Angelenos" type material and a lot more besides. DeVitto, Stegmeyer, Javors, and Cannata would be the essential members of the Billy Joel band for the next several albums.

The album includes eight songs (symbolized by the different characters on the jacket photo - yup, it's one of those). Reflecting Joel's confidence in the material, but perhaps his dissatisfaction with his own recordings, four of the tracks reappear on Songs in the Attic and two alternate versions show up on Greatest Hits Vol. I and II - one from Songs... and one with a replacement sax solo following Cannata's dismissal.
Released in May of 1976, the album had two singles, neither of which charted, and peaked at a dismal #122 in the US. (Intriguingly, Australia pushed it up to #12.)

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

Say Goodbye To Hollywood opens the album with a declaration of Billy's state of mind at the time. Backed, oddly, with "Stop In Nevada" from the album before last, it was the lead single, and flopped.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5a/Say_Goodbye_76.jpg

A considerably oomphier and less metallic live version (Milwaukee Arena, 7/14/1980) opens side two of Songs in the Attic. Issued as the lead single to that album, with Joel a star, it made it to #17 in the US, and it is this version that many of us grew up on, via Greatest Hits I & II.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/10/Say_Goodbye_to_Hollywood.jpg

Covers of the song have tended to try and bring out the Wall of Sound aspirations; these include one from aforementioned Eltonite Nigel Olsson in 1979, and a non-album 1977 single by Ronnie Spector herself, backed by the E Street Band in their first credited recording. Both flopped. Bette Midler approached it a bit differently as an album track in 1977.

That is a terrible Yawnsomely Literal Imagery album cover

Pop Spots has taken the trouble of locating the specific turnstile, though sadly the actual hardware has long since been swapped out.

like that Spector cover

FUCK YES

one of my most favorite Billy Joel songs!
I love the echo
the build-up in the chorus
the strings
everything EVERYTHING about the drums
the castanets!

life is a series of hellos and goodbyes
im afraid
its time for goodbye again

AND I LOVE THE SAX <3

and the long outro

liberty devitto & richie cannata are the keys to my love of Billy Joel

and i love Ronnie Spector's cover of this

last summer i saw a band called the lords of 52nd st, with richie cannata, liberty devitto, russell javors, and some guy imitating billy joel. they were good! it was free and outdoors and all, which might have contributed. they played on a bandstand overlooking "richie cannata place."

http://www.glencove-li.us/mayor-spinello-recognizes-musician-richie-cannata-honorary-street-dedication/

Yeah, I love this song. The title alone puts it up there with "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" (and "Curtains," also by Elton) in its evocation of a departure that is necessary but perhaps bittersweet - both Hollywood and the Yellow Brick Road sound like places that have at least some things to offer, but in both cases the narrator has made the existential choice that it's time to leave. So you root for him in his big move, while growing a little wistful for the places you've left behind in your own journey. In Elton's, this gets larded up with some down-home imagery and a relationship drama, a close cousin of "Someone Saved My Life Tonight": I had to get away from you and your scene before it all snuffed out what's special about me.

Billy's lyric is frankly much vaguer - I've never been entirely sure what to make of Bobby and Johnny's adventures, driving around and being troubadours - but that's all right because of that great bridge, unafraid to risk platitudinous triteness in capturing the turning-point stakes of moving away, foreshadowed from the moment you arrive: moving on is a chance you take every time. After the underwitten fare of the last album, it's also just exciting to hear a song fully kitted out with verses, chorus, bridge and solos. You can see why so many people would try their hand at covering it - there's a hit here somewhere even if nobody ever figured out how to extract it.

The delivery of "rent-a-caaaaaar" might also mark the arrival of Joel's mature vocal style, a kind of operatic, unafraid-of-uncoolness delivery that owes more to, say, Volare than to anything in the rock or singer-songwriter traditions.

yeah this seems like a big step forward and on par or better than the best songs on Piano Man

I've always liked this song, but because I grew up with the Songs in the Attic version (via GH), this one just doesn't sound right to me, mostly owing to his delivery of the title on the studio version vs. the live cut. What can I say; having grown up with "Say Goodbye to Hollywoooood," I can't hear it any other way. There's an irony here, perhaps, as I just complained about his elongated vowels a couple of songs ago, but his delivery on the live cut just emphasizes the joyfulness of an already joyful song. The Clarence Clemons-y sax, too, in the original, is too muted; the live version lets it shine.

Hearing the Turnstiles, Ronnie Spector and Bette Midler versions just now does clarify something for me, though: the lyric I always heard as "now he won't be my mascot anymore" is actually "now he won't be my fast gun anymore." Huh.

I used to hear it as "fast button," like a weird way of saying he had him on speed dial.

i always hear it as "fast butt" even though i know it isnt

Best thing yet. Love the Be My Baby style intro and pulse through the song. Gives Billy some forward propulsion and he rides it like a champ.