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

or rather one hit lol

but really i'm just casting about for a bolder way to say "the conventional wisdom on billy joel doesn't accurately describe what he does as a songwriter and performer." i think he's slightly more interesting than his rep. doesn't have to take anything away from these other cats.

and yes who can forget the feverish period of "loumania"... the magazine covers, the superbowl halftime shows, the cooking lessons on "good morning america"... oh and the forty-four singles of which one got to #16, two stalled just below #100 and all the rest did not chart

(for comparison to joel see the OP in this thread)

Dylan literally, at the height of his career, invented a new singing voice for himself and released Nashville Skyline

I agree with Dr. C that Joel is more interesting than he is generally given credit for.

Also that he's not in competition with Bob Dylan, sheesh. Girls, you're both pretty. He doesn't have to be credited with saving rock; he doesn't have to be disparaged as the Worst Thing Ever either.

As I have said a couple times upthread, there are a few places where I think he innovated. He arrived first at some places that other superstars hadn't got to yet. And I would certainly characterize his approach to pastiche as postmodern: winking, but also unapologetically heartfelt. His willingness to be uncool is, itself, a type of cool, and that's a pretty pomo posture.

The opening swirl of keyboards

...is a complete and crazy fakeout, promising, for seven glorious seconds, that we are about to witness the return of the angry young root beer piano man. and then, instead, boom, it's another innocent man-like genre/artist homage, except this time he's taking on someone his own age. sting is only two years younger than he is! "running on ice" is no more or less on-the-nose than anything on the previous album, and i could see it fitting in on either glass houses or nylon curtain with a few tweaks here and there. so basically, billy being billy, having fun trying on yet another face. "i'm a cosmopolitan sophisticate of culture and intelligence" sounds like he's taking the homage thing a little too far. but it also sounds exactly like something billy would say. as doctor c says above, he's really good at finding his own voice through other people's voices. he finds decent melodies that-a-way, too. thumbs up.

Busy day today, no time for Billy, so I'm listening/commenting without having read today's discussion:

The Bridge is probably, along with Cold Spring Harbor, the album of his that I had the least familiarity with going into this. I don't remember the singles having much of a radio presence (unlike "We Didn't Start the Fire," one album later), and I always assumed, from the two big singles off of this album, that the whole thing found him going all-out arena-rock. I knew that it has duets with Cyndi Lauper (which I'm curious about) and Ray Charles (which just seems like a wish fulfillment fantasy crossed with a literalization of Billy's occasional Ray impersonations throughout his career), but we'll get to those.

Anyway...

Billy does The Police does not sound like anything that I would want to hear in either theory or in practice. I'm not a Police fan, but I'm not a hater either. But this is more shrug-worthy than actively annoying.

Usually I feel some Billy comes through in the performance, if not the songwriting, but if I had first heard "Running on Ice" in the wild, I'd think it was someone else. They've done everything to copy the Police: the voice, the playing, the arrangement, the shifts between the verses and chorus - the opening piano part is the only Billy I recognize here. it's not a bad song, but pretty wild and unpolished compared to the other songs I know from the album. Seems like a very awkward transition into "This is the Time", at the least

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1M443VsY4XI

This is the Time was the album's third single. Sans video, it reached #18 on the Hot 100 and #1 on Adult Contemporary. For a song I've never heard before, it apparently had a decent pop-cultural afterlife:

The song was featured on the NBA VHS NBA Superstars, in a segment showcasing Hall of Fame players from the 1950s to the 1970s.[citation needed] It was also played during Larry Bird's retirement ceremony at the Boston Garden in 1993, this time honoring past players of the Boston Celtics.[citation needed]

"This Is the Time" is the title of a 2014 season 2 episode of The Carrie Diaries in which Carrie (AnnaSophia Robb) attends her senior prom. Joel's song is referenced by character Donna LaDonna (Chloe Bridges) during her prom queen acceptance speech as the music begins to play in the background. It is mentioned twice more in conversations shortly thereafter. The Correatown cover version of the song also plays in the closing minutes of this penultimate episode.

In Italy this song was used as opening and closing theme for the soap-opera "Guiding Light" (In Italy called "Sentieri") from 1986 to 2007.[4]

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the sound design of this song is basically perfect for me. even the wave sound effect

the songwriting itself is a little ponderous and uneventful (and potentially indifferent) but still pleasant and lifted considerably by the production. amy grant could kill this song

Thanks to high school graduations and (in my case) a religious retreat in high school, "This is the Time" has not gone away; it's an A/C standard. I have no affection for it but I don't hate it.

I had a little trouble processing a Joel track with the guitar so foregrounded. A bit ploddy but inoffensive.

Lyrics sounding very much like the weary adults I knew: my parents and their peers. Still striving for romantic connection but also so, so tired and jaded. It wasn't particularly relatable to me and my peers - teenagers with boundless energy and unquenchable desires for sex, booze, drugs, dangerous edge-dwelling adventures, and loud arena rock.

But it was, nevertheless, my high school class's chosen theme song for prom '89. Maybe we could see our future, more responsible, more ennui-laden selves in it?

i like the weird desolate/haunted vibe billy brings on the verses

I'm surprised you've never heard it, Doc! It's one of his more omnipresent songs post-1983.

"we walked on the beach beside that old hotel / they're tearing it down now but it's just as well" "someday we will both look back and have to laugh / we lived through a lifetime and the aftermath" "and so we embrace again behind the dunes / this beach is so cold on winter afternoons"

were it not for the chorus and the general vibe of domestic ennui, i'd consider this song kinda post-apocalyptic

the synthesized backdrop evokes that beach by the old hotel too

def got some solo henley vibes in the verses haunted synth AOR, i wonder if this is the same beach where the sunset grill and the basket ppl are?

agree the chorus isn't as good as the verses and kinda kills my vibe....what a weird prom song! i mean i get the very base level "time to remember" but, man, it's pretty depressing

sometimes it's too easy to let a day slip on by

don't i know it billy?

it's def "Boys of Summer"-inspired.

It's somber but actually pretty hopeful and brave on balance: yeah we're aging and caught up in our own things, but we're not done yet. "I haven't shown you everything a man can do. Stay with me baby, I've got plans for you."

It's an interesting contrast with the now-cliché nostalgic backward look at youth: "my sweet romantic teenage nights"; "I've loved these days"; making it with a redhead girl in a Chev-uh-ro-let.

It's as if he's saying, no, I was mistaken. It's actually THIS stuff that matters more. Staying together long-term. Being busy grownups who are still nevertheless willing to cling together in spite of inevitable entropy. That's the act of courage, and the most substantive, fulfilling flavor of romance. "Now I need the rest of you."

A pretty nuanced and sophisticated message for an artist who we were just disparaging as a lightweight imitator just yesterday.

I want to go on the record as saying that I feel I am being swift boated as a being part of the Shakey Billy Haterz Clubhouse

I have complicated adult relationship w/Billy Joel that is very full of nuance

<3

I want to go on the record as saying that I feel I am being swift boated as a being part of the Shakey Billy Haterz Clubhouse

I have complicated adult relationship w/Billy Joel that is very full of nuance

― Universal LULU Nation (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, November 7, 2017

^^ these are the days to hold on to

Your perspective is welcome and valued, UMS. Shakey's too.

I'm just sayin: the main diss on Billy seems to be that he just turns in half-baked tossed-off pastiches of Sting or Henley whatever, then rakes in the dough. And yet, here is a work that at least strives toward transcendence and a kind of wisdom, presented almost as a refutation to the serial selves he presented only one album earlier.

ME, IN 1986: "More like 'This is the Time'... that I start listening to Mötley Crüe!"

Gööd for yöü

were it not for the chorus and the general vibe of domestic ennui, i'd consider this song kinda post-apocalyptic

yeah apart from the glimmer of hope in the chorus this is downright Ballardian. I kind of admire it's commitment to 80s AOR schlock production values right down to the chorus box guitar lead and plunky synth backdrop (I suspect that setting is probably "Peruvian percussion"), this glistening surface undercut with ennui and exhaustion, so very very Boomer-in-'85. It's not a patch on "Boys of Summer", but they kind of do different things - "Summer" is more propulsive and this is more "white curtains billowing in an empty house" ethereal.

DON: Billy Joel is a fine craftsman, and it's been a pleasure watching so many of his songs become standards.

GHOST OF GLENN: All I know is that whenever I heard "This is the Time" on the radio when I was making my own record, I kept thinking how myself and Don might have approached the same concept: "This is time...TO CHUG ALL NIGHT!"

DON: Well, yeah.

re: adultiness and nostalgia - well, he did indicate in "Keeping the Faith" that the "whole revival" was wrapped up and that "tomorrow's not as bad as it seems." And then "The Night Is Still Young" is about wanting to pack in the touring career, spend a long night with your lady, etc. It's almost a promissory note for songs like this one.

As well, since the last album was a throwback (albeit with many 80s sonic developments), we're really feeling full force the gulf between early 1982, when The Nylon Curtain was recorded, and early 1986, when this album was finalized. The Greatest Hits bonus songs hinted at this, of course, but those aside it's a big jump from the lingering 70s Beatle pop-rock style of TNC to this archetypal mid-to-late-80s recording. I still mostly buy that Billy and Liberty could be in the same room recording this, but there's a certain chill and isolation to the sound, for me. Maybe that just reflects a bit of the prom-night sensibility from "This Night," but it's hard to disaggregate that from the general spaciousness of 80s digital production.

That said, its three weeks at #1 on Adult Contemporary were sandwiched in between runs by hits like Billy Ocean's "Love Is Forever," Bruce Hornsby's "The Way It Is" and "Mandolin Rain," Billy Vera's "At This Moment," the Jets' "You Got It All," and Lionel Richie's "Ballerina Girl," most of which sound far more like an isolated vocal track slotted into tech demos of DX7s and pad-triggered drum machines. (The exception is Vera's track -which is actually a 1981 live recording given new exposure on Family Ties, a genuine time-capsule of yacht-era AM gold... down to a Cannata-esque sax part.)

I was in grade school at this time and this sound is still basically what I think of "adult contemporary" as sounding like. As square as VH1 was in the 90s, by then I still think I mostly heard these in dentists' offices if anywhere. Credit to Billy for getting out something that sounds at least a little more live and band-like. And, probably, for making the chart careers of people like Hornsby and Vera possible in the first place.

re: the post-apocalyptic beach hotel: first thing I thought of was King & Straub's The Talisman, which came out in 1984. Are we getting a glimpse into Billy's airport-bookstore shopping?

That said, its three weeks at #1 on Adult Contemporary were sandwiched in between runs by hits like Billy Ocean's "Love Is Forever," Bruce Hornsby's "The Way It Is" and "Mandolin Rain," Billy Vera's "At This Moment," the Jets' "You Got It All," and Lionel Richie's "Ballerina Girl," most of which sound far more like an isolated vocal track slotted into tech demos of DX7s and pad-triggered drum machines

I also think of Carly Simon's comeback "Coming Around Again," huge on A/C in late '86 and early '87, and also haunted by death.

“Running on Ice” is ok, nothing too memorable but pleasant enough to listen to

I secretly love “This Is The Time”.., ok well not even secretly. I just love it.
Has a sad, slightly haunting quality that I really like... something about this song reminds me of Carly Simon’s “Let The River Run”,

It belongs in that small category of secular crossover songs that could play at a funeral or a wedding, like Bridge Over Troubled Water (but not as good as that obv)

Epic sap.

re: the post-apocalyptic beach hotel: first thing I thought of was King & Straub's The Talisman, which came out in 1984. Are we getting a glimpse into Billy's airport-bookstore shopping?

― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, November 7, 2017 10:21 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

woah....that's good

Surprised some of y'all don't know this song - it got so much play on the A/C station my mom favored when i was growing up. Not to mention it's on GHV3. Nice song and production, a bit relaxed for him. Someone said sophistipop - I think that label fits. Actually I think of this era on as a distinct phase of Joel, where he sings in a low, calm register much of the time

My school also had the choice of this as our prom theme, but went with "All I Want is You" by U2. As we got to the sixth minute of me awkwardly dancing with the platonic friend I had invited to prom, I dearly regretted not voting for the shorter Billy Joel song

the first 15 seconds suggest a pretty good steely dan album track could be coming.

the second half of the chorus, where he tries to push the song to eleven with one extra celestial pop hook ("this is the tiiiiiiime, but time is gonna chaaaaaange"), kind of ruins the mood for me. a little *too* adult contemporary all of a sudden, like he brought diane warren out of the bullpen to finish the game for him and she came right in with the diane warren high heat, same as she throws every night.

i'm basically indifferent to this one.

Hard to believe this is the same guy who gave us the curdled sneer of “The Stranger” or even the schizoid paranoia of “Scandinavian Skies” just a couple of years earlier.

I dunno, it's pretty easy to believe to me -- I can see the sneer in "This is the Time."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fGHuwWMZ1w

A Matter of Trust, with its roots-rockin' video, was the album's second single. It peaked at #10, getting to #17 on Adult Contemporary (too much rockin'!), and #3 in Australia, South Africa, and... Poland. Joel's Eastern Bloc popularity would lead to an invitation from the Kremlin to perform a six-date tour of Moscow and Leningrad. This in turn produced a live album (Концерт) to which we'll touch on briefly in a few days; its 2014 expanded rereleased was titled A Matter of Trust: A The Bridge to Russia.

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my favorite billy joel song i think

unfortunately i will now think of it whenever i play rilo kiley’s “silver lining”

The knockkneed rhythm and Joel's barking shouldn't work but they do, like hell. This is the post-1983 single I hear most on the radio.

Whenever he plays it live, he straps on a guitar too.

I've gotten to like it a bit in the past few years, having not really grown up with it. It's super stiff but I don't hate this particular form of dad-rock... I just wish it was maybe 1:30 shorter. It's got a lot of lyrics and a lot of them wash by... I wonder, if someone had put their foot down and said, you have to cut two stanzas from this, what would he have picked?

I forget about this song's existence sometimes, but it's one of his absolute best. The melody is so strong that I think Phil Ramone and the band are just trying not to step on it - very basic arrangement, but it works. The rhythms of the lines are really memorable, and there's a couple little moments that I love: the understated guitar line during the B-section and the sung count-off

not sure if it was intentional but I always the video as a play on the Beatles rooftop concert. knowing Joel, it is

unfortunately i will now think of it whenever i play rilo kiley’s “silver lining”

― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Wednesday, November 8, 2017 8:10 AM (thirty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Holy crap, I never made this connection before. Nice!

I love the beginning of the video -- "First two chords are open fifth, second two chords are open fifth." ROCK AND ROLL!!!!

The rhythmic stiffness dovetails with the lyric: he's steady, dependable, count on me, girl.

Feel like if you kept the stiff rhythm and just fiddled the sliders on Ramone's recording deck you might arrive at something like an "Addicted to Love" prototype.

In my top three. Possibly my favorite rocker. The bridge (npi) is very satisfying.

"I know you have doubts, but for god's sake don't shut me out" is thematically linked with the previous song's similar pleas ("stay with me baby, I've got plans for you" / "you've given me the best of you, but now I need the rest of you").

We're a long way from "I don't care what you say anymore, this is my life." Makes sense thematically as well as with where Bill himself is personally at this time - settled family life, new baby, not wanting to tour.

Whoa at Addicted to Love. I mean, it would've made more sense to hear Palmer do this one than New Day Rising.

Wish I could find the post from sunny successor where she recalls this song coming on the radio at a red light while her mom was taking her somewhere.

SS sings along with the intro ONE - TWO, uh-ONE TWO THREE FOUR.

And on FOUR, her mom just takes off across the intersection, red light be damned.

Also, the font position on that 45 sleeve is messing with me a bit.

https://i.imgur.com/Vp116iO.jpg

There's this unreleased Wilco song that always makes me think, "What song does this sound like?"

Until I hear "Matter of Trust" later and go, "Wait, someone else did a song that sounds like this."