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

yeah it's cool to hear billy on a synth again after (I assume) ramone forced him at gunpoint to shelve that peppy lil' moog. what synth is this do we think? sounds a lot like the tone on "pressure.". i dunno if the manic guitar solo really fits the anxious energy of this song but i like the way it kinda emerges from that keyboard part.

and man well i'm def not gonna try to compete on stones trivia. tho that wikipedia entry would certainly be consistent with a scenario where they keep trying to make this thing work in a reggae style (i'm imagining "i can feel the fire" here) it never works, they shelve it, and when they return to it, it's a totally different tempo and arrangement, which happens to sound enormously similar to "thunder island," a top ten hit by a guy who i imagine had crossed the stones' path at some point in either his Spirit or Jo Jo Gunne tenures.

i dunno man... it's the same exact riff and he'd already charted with it years before theirs came out! but then these things happen. in one of the interview clips linked above, billy cops to discovering, years later, that "it's still rock n roll to me" has the same chord progression as "lay lady lay" which i admit would never have occurred to me in a million years.

Eephus OTM about that design! It's totally the look of Vintage Contemporary.

https://deepcovers.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/kosinski-steps.jpg?w=283&h=443

Dr. C.: "Pressure" doesn't sound like a DX7. Every studio had a Fairlight around this time, right?

The verses effectively mimic the tension of Cars/early-Attractions-era New Wave--a tension put to good use, given the song's subject matter--but the synth hook that follows the chorus is too broad (prog-y?) for me. It reminds me not so much of "Pressure" (though I see the resemblance) than of the stadium rock turn he'd take later in the decade.

I'm nominally an adult and I still don't truly know what that electric chair line is supposed to mean, but it's one of his best verses either way.

oooh I really like this

the intro has a real Cars feel, like I could sing "i dont mind you coming here...." over top & it kinda works

it really rocks though! i dig it

his rockabilly-style delivery is good; but maybe liven up with the backing vox on the chorus, those ooh oh oh's sound a bit unenthused

not huge into the twiddly synth but that's my own cross to bear

also thank u to ums for the side journey re Start Me Up/Jay Ferguson

Thunder Island is cool and all but i always thought that claim that the Stones ripped him off was a bit rich

this song is some cars shit

i also like it a lot

I don't remember this song at all, pretty forgettable. Interesting we're two songs in and there's minimal/nonexistent keyboards. A strange tacit admission that pianos don't "rock"...?

Apparently the synth line of "Pressure" is six synth parts layered, so it could be lots of things (though probably not Fairlight).

I go back and forth between admiring the restraint of the chorus and thinking it could use some more sustained guitar strums and layering of vocals. Maybe I'd prefer if they split the difference and had the last chorus bigger than the others. The verses and the Pressure-y part are perfect though

it's pretty amazing how he did such a canny job of "flipping the switch" into the 80s

Yeah, totally agreed. He incorporated some New Wave influences pretty seamlessly into his work, which I suppose makes sense for someone who draws so much from other artists' styles. Of course, we're gonna get a song soon that complains about that very trend...

"Rosalinda's Eyes" will forever make me think of Freaks & Geeks.

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

Don't Ask Me Why takes a breather from all the hormonal new-wavey energy for a strummy tour through McCartney territory. Released as the third single just as the LP was ending its reign at #1, it peaked at #19 on the Hot 100, and was his second #1 Adult Contemporary #1. Sadly, it did not get a music video - don't ask me why.

https://img.discogs.com/JqSBzgINa2-IzeCbZY_SNuRPx2E=/fit-in/600x588/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-2387273-1391047732-4412.jpeg.jpg https://img.discogs.com/RsrB7TP43mF6ZsFiTQFyznzr9ys=/fit-in/593x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-8580955-1464464774-1105.jpeg.jpg

https://img.discogs.com/jvblEFiHZ3ob1FtE0BULl-5MkYs=/fit-in/532x528/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-2141442-1266672323.jpeg.jpg https://img.discogs.com/MLm240KvIuKccUMVsO6dxFrVVwY=/fit-in/600x383/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-5729247-1436121296-1933.jpeg.jpg

an A/C recurrent to this day. I like the light samba beat.

back from the jewish holidays to catch up with the rollout of my favorite billy album.

lol this album is heavy as a wad of bubblegum

and that's exactly why it's my favorite billy album. chewable new wave bubblegum perfection. kasenetz and katz could've made this album.

you may be right - the smashed glass and bowie riff that opens the album is SHOTS FIRED, like, "i'm sorry, the old billy can't come to the phone right now. why? oh, 'cause he's dead!" except that billy, very much like taylor, doesn't actually know how to be dead, not even with an electric chair or an electric guitar or a motorbike ride through bed-stuy AND the combat zone. he may be crazy, but i guarantee he was smart enough not to wear a yankees hat in the combat zone. 'cause he had a bubblegum album to make and a lonely girl to impress.i love every single thing about this song, even though i agree that the verse is better than the chorus, and even though the sax solo kind of takes me out of the new wave bubblegum bowie fantasy. the guitar riff hallelujah.

sometimes a fantasy - i'm not sure why i love this but i do. just a nifty little rocker, and whoever invoked elvis costello graham parker and all that, which was maybe several of you, is otm. the mix of the oh-oh-oh's in the chorus are weird; they sound detached from the rest of the song. i like how the last one in each chorus invokes the ronettes "whoa oh oh oh" that we've come to depend on from billy

don't ask me why - everything about this is note-for-note macca perfection, but mostly it's the lightness and sweetness of the vocal, which is very young macca. and then on the "you can say the human heart is only make believe" part, he becomes nilsson and makes it even better. i like the light samba beat, too, and love the piano-and-hand-clap-and-claves instrumental break. this is top 10, if not top 5, billy for me.

(also, no one's mentioned the watch on liberty's ankle on the inner sleeve. i love the watch on liberty's ankle.)

the "oh oh oh oh" s are VERY close, sonically, to the "woah oh oh" s on the buggles' "elstree" as we've discussed on another thread some time back. that album came out january 1980 so it's *possible* they heard it and, near the end of the sessions, were like "we gotta get this hot new sound on the album!" or maybe there's some third source, or people independently discovering a use for some new studio gadget?

wow never heard that buggles song before. that's totally plausible. also, hmm, there's some electric piano in there that reminds me of my all-time favorite billy joel rock piano moment which is coming up later on this album side. (and which he was playing live before january 1980, so i will not credit the buggles for that!)

I think "Harder to Breathe" by Maroon 5 uses the same "whoa oh oh oh" but presumably Billy did not steal it from them

i've done some further research and conclude that they all got it from jay ferguson

but seriously I feel like billy would have been into the buggles. hooky, lotta keyboard, impeccably produced. the opening to "all for leyna," coming up shortly, is very bugglesy to me, specifically recalling the opening to "plastic age." sounds like an early version of what would become the "honky-tonk piano" preset on a thousand general-midi-set consumer keyboards, with some reverb or something to make it weirder and give it more presence. wish billy'd covered "kid dynamo" or "clean clean" or "lenny," his bellowing delivery would make such an interesting hybrid with that sound.

love "don't ask me why" but have very little to say about it. probably one of my first favorites, with "movin' out" and "only the good die young." just so easily, casually catchy and singable. like "my life" it does suffer from an underwritten "wait what is this verse as a whole about again?" quality. also a mccartney trademark and not usually a problem for me but beyond a general sense of, once again, arriving at adulthood and finding it some kind of mixed bag, the plot here is very hard to pin down. "pressure" will take a stronger stance on a similar moment. i guess this is the opposite of a "you're so dumb" song maybe - "you're getting by okay, or something, I guess, not really my problem tbh"

obv this is also a variation on "big shot," at least in a couple places - all the waiters snap to attention with a blink, but the judging tone has kinda disappeared. i know you're no stranger to the streets but it's cool that you've reinvented yourself, whatever, it's not like I'm going to tell anybody anyway. "like a rolling stone" run backwards and with the attitude inverted. feels like a reagan-era theme song for the sherman mccoys and gordon gekkos, just a little early. what being an only child has to do with it though... shrug whatever, boy this is a pleasant little ditty.

childhood fragment: I remember thinking the "you can KILL THEM" line coming across as a hilarious non-sequitur.

Don't ax me why is def top 10 for me too. For all the reasons mentioned. I love the lightly strummed acoustic, the sly lyrics.

Something that always gets me in the verse is the interval and contrasting tone between the first and second lines. (For example) "All the servants at your new hotel" is mocking cynical Billy. But for the line "throw their roses at your feet" is sung sweeter, higher, and clearer in his balladeer style.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEm3Kx7bAxo

It's Still Rock and Roll To Me, released as Glass Houses' second single in May of 1980, was a major boost to the album's sales and a massive success in its own right, with eleven weeks in the top ten and two at #1 - the first of Billy's three chart-toppers. (At #2 were Paul McCartney & Wings' "Coming Up (Live at Glasgow)" and Olivia Newton-John's "Magic," both of which had their own stints at the top.) It was the ninth-biggest U.S. hit of the year, and also made it to #10 in Australia and #14 in the UK (not always a receptive crowd for Joel). The video offers plenty of facial expressions from Billy and a different vocal take, but is otherwise just another one of those "I guess we could... film them on a sound stage?" turn-of-the-decade vids.

For such a big hit, it hasn't been much covered, perhaps owing to its somewhat time-sensitive subject matter. The most interesting version is probably a 1980 attempt to break it in Swedish by one Hans Edler, Det Är Rock And Roll För Mej. There's also a novelty 90s skate/pop-punk version by a group called 30FootFall, which sounds basically like all other novelty 90s skate/pop-punk versions of familiar songs. Sadly, neither ventures any take on "All right, Rico!" - a pattern broken by Weird Al's never-released parody. More mean-spirited than his usual fare, it might find one or two appreciative listeners around these parts. Many, many years later, Yankovic would get Joel's permission for a rather tamer take on "Piano Man."

https://img.discogs.com/cVbmWbZlNEN_zShXQuIo6I2gyIQ=/fit-in/600x589/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-2058599-1375050316-2449.jpeg.jpg https://img.discogs.com/fxH4Y2Jbq0UO9ZVLGSy8Vw9tdsY=/fit-in/600x590/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-1505211-1464339549-5116.jpeg.jpg

Ha, I'd never heard that weird Al version

Does anyone else find Billy's beer swigging in the video to be a very odd affectation?

Learned "beau brummel" from this song.

Also tab collars, for that matter.

Sidewinders, still don't know.

He does keep going back to very specific clothing details (comes up again in "Keepin' The Faith").

I was just talking abt this yrsterday w MrVeg

at first it just sounds like “old guy all bunged up about new music” genre that i kinda hate...
but: he’s not that old!
and: he embraced the new style ~for this album~
and: it’s also kind of about...cars? and...fashion? and stereos?
and: quite a few the references are jazz-age which..huh?
the last point especially makes me wonder if he was trying to do a modern take on “anything goes” with the lyrics? idk

I mostly like it bcz it was my Mum’s favorite when I was little

i love when the sax break stops & he goes into the final verse with that long “Ooooooooooooooooohhhhhhooooooooo”

It's one of his more new wave songs! The thumping guitar and bass in the verses reminded me of rubber bands when I was a kid.

I like his outfit for this. It was a good time for normie new wave fashion. Reminds me of
https://i.pinimg.com/236x/b4/39/cd/b439cdca5e4d6d6e32db45866433af6a.jpg

re: his age, yeah! He was 30 when he recorded this, which doesn't seem that old to me. Though I guess how you wear 30 can make you seem either legit or poseur in the eyes of 17 - Sting, just a year or two younger than Billy, managed to get away with it (albeit with some protesting too much re: being "Born in the Fifties").

The jazz age thing is interesting and makes me think of Taco's "Puttin' on the Ritz." Joel conceives of himself as a songwriter more than an interpreter but I kinda feel like he shoulda thrown a synthed-up, wirey take on a Gershwin tune on this album.

then again, it also might just be that his go-to bag is 100% full of old-man references

well, I think even a non-fan could agree that Joel was a diligent student of music history. dude had clearly listened to a lot of old records. indeed, possibly to a fault. cf. all the talk of him biting the steez of old doowop and r&b records.

He's always seemed like an old man to me. The cynicism, the pastiches.

This song is awesome btw - hearing it a hundred times has not made it lose any luster for me. The beginning, just hitting on one bass note, is a really cool way to start a song

yeah it’s def a rocker for me

"White Baby Boomer mansplains rock 'n' roll" is definitely one of the worst lyrical genres ever, but (as some have pointed out) Billy's entry is less cranky than bullshit like Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock N Roll" and Bryan Adams' "Kids Wanna Rock." The whole "call it what you like, it's all rock and roll, maaan" strikes me as generous and inclusive--and while I wouldn't press the issue too hard, the intrinsic queerness of New Wave says something nice about Billy's refusal to give this music the knee-jerk dismissal that many of his peers were pushing at the time.

That said, as a song...blah.

(also, since I just realized that I missed "Don't Axe Me Why" yesterday--I like his sharp lyrical turns of phrase much better than the tune. Some days that's enough for me, and others I need something more muscular, even from Billy.)

I like Dont Ask Me Why okay but it strays into annoying jingle territory for me, it’s a bit annoying/earwormy

"White Baby Boomer mansplains rock 'n' roll" is definitely one of the worst lyrical genres ever, but (as some have pointed out) Billy's entry is less cranky than bullshit like Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock N Roll" and Bryan Adams' "Kids Wanna Rock." The whole "call it what you like, it's all rock and roll, maaan" strikes me as generous and inclusive--and while I wouldn't press the issue too hard, the intrinsic queerness of New Wave says something nice about Billy's refusal to give this music the knee-jerk dismissal that many of his peers were pushing at the time.

That said, as a song...blah.

― the general theme of STUFF (cryptosicko), Sunday, September 24, 2017

otm on every point

otm x 1000 on the generosity and inclusiveness. i'm not even sure this song is *about* new wave or rock and roll. it's more about fashion, about the idea that you've always got to be throwing out what's old and buying what's new regardless of what you like. the idea that you have to always race to keep up. none of the verses is about music. they are, in order, about clothes, cars, clothes again and friends/cliques. i hear the jazz-age references as billy's way of saying this isn't a new concept. there are always new waves and there are always people feeling left behind and you '60s hippies were just as guilty of that as these skinny-tie kids.

that said, i've never loved this song either. but listening to it now, i think the stripped-down production is pretty great.

i love when the sax break stops & he goes into the final verse with that long “Ooooooooooooooooohhhhhhooooooooo”

me too.

Before I actually had the album and the lyric sheet, I experienced one of my few true mondegreens by hearing "You can't get the sound from a story in a magazine/aimed at your average teen" as "You can't get the sound from a story in a magazine/Hey, that's your average teen" which made no sense at all even to an 11 year old.

that’s what i heard too!

https://68.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrt60ip38n1qf6l2ko1_500.png

https://youtu.be/_v7CPzuGwRA

I think I started from something like "even if you're ever esteem" or god knows what string of syllables and words. "Beau Brummel" was "forerunner" or "full runner" iirc.

I mean Billy was right too in a lot of ways, esp. because I'm gonna guess the bands that were probably most up his alley were (given their prominence in NYC & general pop instincts) Ramones and Blondie, both who were 50s and girl group influenced, so it was actually still rock n roll to them (and me and Billy)

Yes, it is weird that he takes a swig of beer.

I am a major New Wave fanboi but even I am aware that New Wave was largely just rock with sillier haircuts.