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

Same year and everything!

turnstiles was my favorite billy joel album for a long time, until it was supplanted by a rather obvious one we'll get to in a few weeks. it didn't have hits like the next album did -- it didn't have any -- but it's a perfect distillation of what was good about billy in the '70s. quiet balladry. loud balladry. big, post-goodbye-yellow-brick-road arena pop-rock. glittery piano magic. enough place names to fill a fodor's guide. but mostly, his melodic gift has finally come into full focus, and he's found the band that knows what to do with it.

also, and i assume lots of artists have exactly this kind of album, since it sounded very much like the commercial breakthroughs to come without being a commercial breakthrough itself, if you were a billy joel fan in those days, this was the obvious non-obvious choice for favorite album. this was the "cool" one.

yeah, it's like a captain fantastic - just coming before the blockbusters rather than after. but similarly consistent in style with them, yet somehow more fan-ready, and heavier on autobiographical reflections than the surrounding LPs.

The Born to Run influence is all over this one, and except for a horn flourish in one of the latter verses, it works, mostly thanks to an ambitious and poignant lyric. I'm less crazy about the echoey quality of Billy's voice, which I find to be a genuine distraction; the Songs in the Attic corrects this, and is probably my preferred version as a result, but the ideal take of this song exists somewhere between the two.

Also, I like that it took me until 2017 to finally hear this song.

http://www.onefinalserenade.com/uploads/2/9/1/2/2912571/1109669_orig.jpg

actually - - - so here's a little evening listening for those looking for something "between the two": one of billy's June, 1977 dates at Carnegie Hall. these nights were the conclusion of a long half-year of touring, and this one in particular was issued on the thirtieth anniversary CD of the stranger. (the fortieth arrives next month - i'm going to pretend i had that in mind all along.) anyway, spoiler alert as this recording does include two then-unrecorded songs that we'll be meeting in a short time.

but it's a great recording of a great concert. maybe better than songs in the attic which i've always sworn by. band sounds fresh, tight, and very warm, and they stretch out a little more. where the SITA versions are almost all within a few seconds of their studio running lengths, here we get an eight-minute "new york state of mind" (with ad-libbed "...Chinese food!" and a lot more sax activity), and a six-minute "Entertainer" with the weakest verse replaced, and DeVitto (and the hall's acoustics) throwing some real muscle behind those Moog breaks. this take on "miami 2017" is very fresh, very hot imo, though i'd love a little more bile in joel's vocal. richie cannata is having a fucking ball.

anyway but yeah not to get a jump on tomorrow but it makes me think how much of the breakout success of the stranger also reflected a long-term touring grind, building up a fanbase and making them hungry for an album that really delivers everything you've heard from the guy in concert. comparisons to the previous year's surprise smash frampton comes alive would probably be a bit off the mark, but, still. i'm kicking myself for never having listened to this show before - it's got SO much of what i want out of a billy joel recording.

https://ewedit.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/billy-joel-1977-tour-poster-fairleigh-dickenson.jpg?w=1200&h=1811

And before we leave the bicentennial, had to post this photo.

http://i.imgur.com/EjBfbue.jpg

This man doesn't take shit from no one.

Hey Billy - don't you know that your tie's too wide?

being able to see that lit bulb thru his barnet = generally considered a photography no-no AND early indicator of worse to come hairwise

https://img.discogs.com/w9KnUJIb_os_j4l-qiWdMNrDy1E=/fit-in/600x604/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-1108650-1441271466-9874.jpeg.jpg https://img.discogs.com/UfTIxmQjpXhYDcB_bEXieOz99xE=/fit-in/600x608/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-1108650-1441271468-7773.jpeg.jpg

The Stranger, recorded in the summer of 1977 and released that September, was Billy Joel's breakthrough. Following a couple of flop albums and a substantial, band-tightening tour, as noted above, Billy apparently still had enough support at Columbia that they made an honest go of making a great record. The self-production effort on Turnstiles having underperformed, they initially turned to none other than George Martin, obviously best known for the Beatles. At the time, most of his work was for America (the band), and despite some big hits a few years earlier ("Tin Man" and "Sister Golden Hair" are Martin productions), their '76 and '77 albums had both flopped hard and so it might be that this wasn't quite the STAR PRODUCER SAVIOR move it would seem today. Anyway, the story goes that Martin - true to form - wanted to ditch the touring band and return to session players. Joel understandably said no, apparently with the label's backing, and it didn't happen. (In Billy's telling, Martin would later write a "you were right" note, after the album's success.)

Instead, the producer's chair was taken by Phil Ramone, who as noted above was coming off Still Crazy After All These Years, a big hit in Billy's general wheelhouse. He'd also been the engineer (de facto producer?) on Blood on the Tracks, as well as producing some Garfunkel records and Phoebe Snow, who contributes backing vocals on one track here. (DeVitto and Stegmeyer would in turn play on her 1978 LP.) After this, Ramone would produce all of Billy's albums through An Innocent Man; here, he strikes a balance between the "just me and the band" vibe, and a host of session players and vocalists reminiscent of the Los Angeles records. Engineer Jim Boyer, who I'm guessing came along with Ramone since they worked together on the Streisand/Kristofferson A Star Is Born, would stay with Billy through The Bridge, plus work on some later live albums. (The same year as he recorded this album, Boyer worked on Marquee Moon - now there's a case where I wish some personnel-swapping collaborations could have somehow come to pass.)

One more personnel note: despite all this keep-the-band-together business, the guitarist position was apparently a hard one to fill. Howie Emerson appears on Turnstiles and the following tour; Russell Javors was on Turnstiles, is absent from The Stranger and then returns for everything through The Bridge. On this album, it's all session pros: Steve Khan (also heard on Aja, released the previous week, and 52nd Street), Hugh McCracken (huge pop/rock resume, including a couple of Phil Ramone productions, and Katy Lied), Hiram Bullock (a jazz fusion prodigy, later heard on Gaucho) and Steve Burgh (a guitarist slash producer, again with Phoebe Snow connections, who somehow never appeared on a Steely Dan album but is on Swans' White Light from the Mouth of Infinity).

https://img.discogs.com/5ESWmKTWnGzncO1mGqGgBZRJdEE=/fit-in/600x582/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-1108650-1441271464-6078.jpeg.jpg

But anyway - - - - The Stranger! Billy's biggest seller besides Greatest Hits, it spent six weeks at #2 on the albums chart (kept from #1 by Saturday Night Fever). It was eventually diamond-certified, and at least one source has it as the USA's #12 best-selling album of the 1970s. Its four US singles have all become radio staples, and clearly helped propel the album's success, but interestingly, they weren't massive hits, peaking at #3, #17, #24, and #17, though two did very well on the Easy Listening chart. We'll cover all that as we get to each song, but I do think it's worth noting that it's not a Rumours or Thriller situation where every single is in the top ten and half are #1s. I'd love to know how long it was on the charts overall, how much it felt like a phenomenon versus a burgeoning success.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJtL8vWNZ4o

Movin' Out (Anthony's Song) drops us right into the album with an essential slice of the classic rock radio landscape as I understand it. The second single, it peaked at #17 in the US (#40 on Adult Contemporary), #35 in the UK, and #11 in Canada. Much later, it would be the title song for Twyla Tharp's Billy Joel Broadway revue. Per Wiki, the vrooming car engine heard near the end is a Corvette belonging to Doug Stegmeyer.

I never noticed he was barefoot on the cover. Once heard that was a clue that the featured musician was dead.

http://i.imgur.com/aHDRME3.jpg

Seeing the scene in color makes even more eerie.

http://i.imgur.com/TZOXEvV.jpg

So my step-dad had this briefcase of cassette tapes. Aja was in there, but I never listened to it. Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd, with the alternate cover art of the robots shaking hands. Abbey Road, speaking of barefoot musicians, in which Here Comes the Sun and Come Together switched sides.

And then there was The Stranger. I don't know how I latched on to this guy, but it must've come from that briefcase.

What a weird album for a 10-year-old to get into? But I played it all the time on a little boombox behind my parents' corner grocery store. This wasn't long after my mom and dad split up, so cheesy as it sounds, something like "Scenes..." offered a plausible explanation for it all. (You think that's cheesy, just wait until we get to 52nd Street.)

It was one thing to play the tape, but I eventually got the vinyl version of The Stranger. There is something about dropping the needle and blam, that first chord of "Movin' Out" firing out. "Who needs a house out in Hackensack?" Could've almost been a Chuck Berry lyric.

Stoked for the next six weeks.

Visual representation of my post above:

http://i.imgur.com/Vd5ppOu.jpg http://i.imgur.com/lElrrJA.jpg

FINALLY. Confidence in his arrangement meets lyrical bravado. I love the stutter.

great posts all. gotta say I would never in a million years have assumed THAT color scheme for the bed linens.

as another ten-year-old fascinated by billy joel (and chuck berry) I think the confident jam-packing of syllables with emphasis was a huge part of the appeal. "HE WORKS AT MIS-TER-CAC-CIA-TOR-E's down on SULL-I-VAN STREET, across from the MED-I-CUH-CEN-Tuhhh," "and IF he can't DRIVE with a BROkenBACK...at least he can *P*olish the FENduhhhs..." and of course "ack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack" --- total candy to sing along to. the billy of a couple albums ago would have just, yknow, sung the lines, perhaps with the lilting "she's got a way" delivery, or just an evened-out rock impression. here he's really finding rhythmic hooks in his delivery... piled on top of the guitar hook, the sax hooks, the arresting stop for the brief wash of "you oughta know byyyy" before piling back in... this is a really smartly-constructed pop-rock single. billy, or phil, is editing down to 3:28 if not quite 3:05, by just packing everything in, rather that loading up with instrumental breaks after every section.

as a kid/teenager, I moved around a bit on the identity of "mama leone" (or "Mama Lee Honay" or whatever I thought it was). i want to say i first took her as just an elderly relation - grandma, aunt, concerned neighbor - who herself had skipped town to escape all this stress, her note "left" in the sense of "left behind," a last word of parting advice, save yourself and get out now! (chuck, too, had relatives leave significant messages written on the wall.)

then a little later, probably after discovering the beatles and specifically "rocky raccoon," i imagined a world in which "mama leone" was a stand-in for some famous society of pamphleteers, like gideon leaving his bible, and that the "note" was really a preachy tract about country living - itself another of the false dreams and headaches to which anthony is saying "fuck it, I'm done." (i suppose she could also be a real estate agent out in hackensack - or one of those who bought cadillacs and left for miami before the apocalypse). it's actually a very 60s sentiment, but wrapped up in 70s working-class new york characters, and called "movin' out" rather than "droppin' out."

it spent six weeks at #2 on the albums chart (kept from #1 by Saturday Night Fever)

this makes total sense, but at the same time is something that never would have occurred to me, it's such a weird juxtaposition

this is a really smartly-constructed pop-rock single

yeah I can't deny this one, although I've never really paid too much attention to it. All the vocal hooks and stuttering asides and the pre-chorus in half-time really keep it moving. For once the panoramic lyrics come together, just enough details to make things interesting and vibrant. And it's short! Over and out before it wears out it's welcome with unnecessary showiness. That being said I find the sax riff is kinda annoying.

tbh the saturday night fever thing is just something i read online at someone's website. wikipedia says it was rumours, which blocked the top spot for almost the entire year. if anybody has access to full billboard charts maybe we can sort this out...

yeah depends when it hit number 2 - SNF hit number one in '78. It's conceivable that Stranger might have taken awhile to climb to the number 2 spot if it was just released in September.

(of '77)

aha - okay that makes sense then. but yeah not sure of the album's overall chart history. feel like it had to be one of those that stuck around on the charts a long time, to rack up the sales that it did...

another childhood memory (i can practically smell the third-grade lunchroom): fascinated and creeped out by nuclear power thanks to david macaulay's the way things work, i tried in my head to come up with lyrics that would permit mention of the Tokamak.

I can't find the album charts but the singles charts indicate this album's singles didn't start hitting until early '78 - Movin Out peaks in May, the others come later

no wait Just the Way You Are hits first in January '78? Gah this stuff is such a labyrinth.

I don't have my Billboard albums book, so I can't trace the album's chart trajectory at the moment.

the singles finally bubbling up in early 78 seems plausible, if surprising, since the first couple came out pretty close on the heels of the album. i can't find reliably complete tour dates but maybe that calendar factors in. he was also on saturday night live in february '78, just before a long world tour - miscellaneous stops in europe, couple of shows in japan, and a full three weeks in australia, where he had evidently built up quite a following.

"and IF he can't DRIVE with a BROkenBACK...at least he can *P*olish the FENduhhhs..."

Hearing this in the early 80s for the first time (instead of the late 70s), I always pictured this character looking a bit like Mr. Wozniak here.

http://i.imgur.com/joHZBeD.jpg

ahahahah

Looks like it was SNF in the top spot, at least for this particular week in February 1978:

http://i.imgur.com/qqWIlmW.jpg

whoops i accidentally didn't check this thread during the entirety of turnstiles

Its four US singles have all become radio staples, and clearly helped propel the album's success, but interestingly, they weren't massive hits, peaking at #3, #17, #24, and #17

he was definitely not viewed as a "singles artist" yet. in 1977, he was very much an "album rock" guy, an FM guy, a long island springsteen. the stranger made him a rock star. full-on pop stardom was still a little ways away.

also worth noting: every album took awhile to climb to #1 or #2 in those way-pre-soundscan days. debuting at #1 was incredibly rare. albums literally had to climb the charts, and it took time.

This was the first song I played through a $1500 stereo system I built a couple years ago and man did it sound glorious

Elton's Captain Fantastic and Rock of the Westies and ISongs in the Key of Life were the only albums to debut at #1 for a few years.

I also see Aja and Little Criminals just a few spots down from Billy in that chart above, and both of them came out the week before The Stranger in Sepetember 1977. Talking Heads: 77 was the week before that. Quite a time. But yes, climbing the charts - the Queen album came out in October, the Rod Stewart and EW&F in November... and of course, Rumours dropped way back in February 1977 and there it is in the top ten a year later.

@ BradNelson - no time like the present to catch up, if you're inclined! I feel like the long haul through Streetlife Serenade may have shed a couple of posters here, which is a shame because the Turnstiles material deserves the attention much more imho.

er not "sepetember"

"Well it was Sep-eptember when my album came OWOOT"

(in Billy Joel voice)

So much detail about money for a pop song! Overtime, taxes, building a life around saving money to lead up to a better life.

I was in the Village once, walking north from Soho, and realized I was looking at *the* Medical Center! Such a fun detail, something totally apart from anyone's mental image of Greenwich Village.

It wasn't until sometime in the past decade that I realize the bridge is a total Layla.

Movin' Out is super classic-ick-ick-ick-ick-ick-ick

So cool to see the album cover again. The Stranger was one of the first albums I purchased. Probably based on hearing one of the singles on the radio. Think I spent more time staring at the back cover to commune with the guys who made this great music.

Alec: You cannot have the Pretenders' first album! That's mine.

Leslie: I bought it.

Alec: You did not! You can have all the Billy Joels... except The Stranger.

http://i.imgur.com/S8ty7pR.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/19pKOEv.jpg

Judd OTM

it's too bad Billy lets this guy play on every song

https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fheadphonenation.files.wordpress.com%2F2012%2F03%2Fst-elmos-rob-lowe-saxaphone.jpg&f=1

well Joel did erase some of Batman's solos later on right?

lol

I may have said this before and it will certainly come up again, but determining the line between endearingly cheesy and eye-rollingly cheesy with Billy Joel is always going to be an inconsistent, indefinable and entirely personal thing. This song may be the strongest example of this so far: there's a lot to like here, as many have noted already (Alfred's "Confidence in his arrangement meets lyrical bravado" is OTM), but there's something a little too on the nose about this to me, particularly re: the ethnic detail here. I'm referring mostly to "Mr. Cacciatore's down on Sullivan Street" which, even as a kid, just never sounded quite right to my ears in that it comes across as more of an Italian sounding name than an actual person's name. Probably because my mind goes to "chicken cacciatore," I guess (Wikipedia: Cacciatore (pronounced [kattʃaˈtoːre]) means "hunter" in Italian. In cuisine, alla cacciatora refers to a meal prepared "hunter-style" with onions, herbs, usually tomatoes, often bell peppers, and sometimes wine"), but "Mr. Cacciatore" feels a bit too much like an Italian-American stereotype that you'd see on Who's the Boss or something. A silly thing to get caught up on, perhaps--and especially when there's so much more going on this song--but I caught myself still cringing at the lyric when listening today.

Still, that stutter is A LOT of fun to sing along with.

re: Mr. Cacciatore sounding like a too-on-the-nose pedestrian detail = feel like you could say this about most of his lyrical details tbh

(my real suspicion is that he used those two names - Cacciatore and Sullivan - because they are names where every syllable is stressed evenly and thus they perfectly fit into the delivery of the melody)

feel like you could say this about most of his lyrical details tbh

Exactly. And as I've said (and will say again throughout this) I can't think of any real metric by which to determine which of these work for me and which do not (other than recognizing them).

that's fair. I mean by comparison the Piano Man cast-of-characters doesn't work for me at all precisely because all the details seem sort of misplaced or misshapen but y'know ymmv