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

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.

much more than "everybody loves you now" or "piano man" or "the entertainer" from albums 1, 2 and 3, this is the birth of billy joel as billy joel. a perfect album opener. i love the vocal, the production, the "in my life"-ish sentiment of "some will last, some will just be now and then." this song may be the first hint that billy himself will be more than just now and then. i have absolutely no idea what he's going on about with bobby and johnny, though i suspect between the spectorisms, the saxophone and the image of the lovers in their heavy machines, there was a well-worn copy of born to run not too far away.

i love that he gets right to it in this song: two bars of drums, two bars of music and we're off. same structure as "be my baby." this is AM radio and there's no time to waste.

hey, you got to make it fit if you want to have a hit.

I know so little about springsteen but from what I do, the connection makes sense. could argue that essentially he swaps tumbleweed connection for born to run and that's the missing piece to the formation of joel. but obviously that's a little reductive... and again I think the bandmates have to be critical here. the songwriting is just instantly more developed and the non-piano, non-vocal parts are much more integral parts of "the song" as a piece of work. or maybe he just benefited from having more time. or maybe the west coast really was holding him back.

the bandmates

for sure. the arrival of liberty, richie, russell and doug (RIP) is huge.

i just saw dunkirk again so i'm all ww2 aviation brain but imo it's like when they finally put the rollsroyce engine in the p-51 -- NOW we fightin some nazis

one of his best imo

i think the band is key because in so many of my favorite upcoming songs the music ceases to be just a bed for his lyrics like it was before; they share the heavy-lifting... his lyrics can still be maddeningly indirect or awkward at times but the band can step up to brightens those spots and/or redirect your attention with sweet riffs or fills or solos etc

yes! And we see that already here in a way - I mean it's certainly possible Joel came in and said "I want the 'Be My Baby' beat," but it seems just as likely to me that he had this song going - plong, plong plong dong - and DeVitto was like you know what would be cool on that is to start it with the "Be My Baby" beat and then kick it up a notch in the chorus. Who knows? Starting with the next album, lead guitar riffs start becoming major hooks in the songs and I highly doubt Billy was working all of those out first and dictating them to the band. It's just a weird artifact of acts being seen as "solo artists" that their bandmates never get woven into the story as much - like, if with this album and his move east they'd decided to take on a new name as "The New Hassles of the Oyster Bay" or something, it would just seem obvious to assume that some of the key parts of the songs are not coming from the lead singer and lyricist.

(next song tomorrow AM, sorry folks)

otm

the mystique of the solo artist definitely keeps the other guys out of the picture

there's a little bit of that with Springsteen, he talked about in his book - he started as a solo artist and that is how he saw himself, and he made it so that he was the band's employer, as tight and creative as they were it was always him AND the band, a very clear delineation for him
but not necessarily them at first. until they realized later on like oh it really is him AND us

Nick Cave to an extent as well.

"Say Goodbye to Hollywood" is a big step-up for his/his band's arrangements. The castanets and strings fit into the picture very cleanly, unlike the stuff on the last album. Not really a favorite song of mine because I feel like his voice stays in the same lane too long, but I like the "moving on is a chance" sections. I wasn't familiar with the "Songs in the Attic" version before but his delivery is a little more diverse there

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tQKW9aquT0

I haven't checked on this, but Summer, Highland Falls has to among the highest-ranked non-hit, non-radio-staple fan favorite Billy Joel songs, when it comes to polls and individual countdowns. Named for the time and place when it was written, back in New York if not Long Island, it also takes us back to the confessional Billy Joel of Cold Spring Harbor, a few years older and more mature as a songwriter. Appropriately for a fan favorite, it appeared on Songs in the Attic, and as the b-side to the live "Say Goodbye to Hollywood," with a performance from D.C.'s Bayou, 7/23/1980.

Sounds like Joel was paying attention to Jackson Browne ("For we are always what our situations hand us/It's either sadness or euphoria")