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

"Temptation" just goes on and on. Between this, "Mulberry Street", and "Modern Woman", he really expanded his range of pastiches to styles that don't suit him, on this album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niIWtw-70Lo

Code of Silence, the second-to-last track, is another duet with a "We Are the World" veteran: the legendary Cyndi Lauper, who also assisted with writing the song. You must watch the corresponding segment to the "Building the Bridge" featurette, online here at 12:34, in which Billy's writer's block is depicted in animated cartoon form. Inexplicably, there is no cartoon Cyndi - was she in rights negotiations for an animated series or something??

In return, Joel showed up doing backing vocals on Lauper's "Maybe He'll Know," which taps back into that An Innocent Man vibe a little bit. It was released as a single in the Netherlands only, and did not chart.

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

Inexplicably, there is no cartoon Cyndi

I would totes dig an MC Skat Cat-style duet with cartoon Cyndi.

Anyway it's not a hook-filled song and I can see why it isn't a perennial fave. Me, I like the dated drum sound (almost "Eminence Front"-ish). Harmonica not unwelcome. But overall, meh.

This is in the tradition of a huge 1986 hit called "Live to Tell," in which Madonna also refuses to explain the nature of the secret.

I listened to this track a lot in July when I created a BJ best-of list.

last two don't do a lot for me

I like the song but the harmonica seems quite out of place

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

Getting Closer: album closer, with Steve Winwood guesting as organ player. I'm under a deadline so can't look up anything else on this one, but as we leave The Bridge, let us also bid farewell to Phil Ramone, Russell Javors, Doug Stegmeyer, and Mark Rivera (the hitherto unmentioend saxophonist who replaced Richie Cannata a while back). Next studio album is a whole new ballgame, with Liberty Devitto the only holdover.

Maybe it's Stevie on the organ, but this could've been on one of those mid-80s Eric Clapton records. Would've fit right in inside the background of one of those pool hall scenes from The Color of Money.

The ascending melody of the chorus is just about the only touch of magic in this song, and it's a very Winwoody magic. Sounds a bit like Traffic's Empty Pages ("found someone who can comfort me...").

So it's either Joel trying in his labored way to write like Stevie. Or maybe Stevie just saying, "well, mate, how about we do something like (burbly burble burbly burble)?"

We're used to all the catchiest top-40 fodder being on side 1 by now, but these last several songs seem particularly hookless and workmanlike.

I couldn't find anything to say about the last two, and that continues with this one. Fair to say that if The Bridge isn't his worst album, it is certainly his dullest?

Dullest, maybe, but not worst, not when a couple of the early albums offer competition.

devitto's drums in "code of silence" carry that song for me

cyndi's harmonies are also wonderful. the verses are soooooo dull and perfunctory though

anyway i think this is weirdly prob my fav billy joel album after innocent man but i very much get finding it his dullest. there's a kind of perfect marriage between sound and composition for me here; even the boring songs aren't very boring to me bc the arrangements are generally doing something cool or extremely uncool!

devitto's snare lands in the strangest places in "code of silence," i love it

"getting closer" is def the most bored i've been on this album so far but the chorus is pretty solid

this is terrible, rock star bitching about royalties/accountants/managers is the worst rock genre

anyway yeah it's vaguely "bluesy" in the worst, most anonymous 1980s way

code of silence - i've listened to this about a dozen times over the past two days trying to come up with something to say about it and i'm at a complete loss. sounds like the cold war to me. (and have we talked about the album cover painting? that *looks* like the cold war to me, and it's just about screaming: "within lies a billy joel album you are not going to like.") thank god for cyndi.

getting closer - "i'm getting closer/getting closer" may be the worst chorus hook in the billy joel oeuvre, and no amount of billy pounding on the piano can hide that.

yeah I would like to like these last couple but am really struggling to. dad rock is fine but not if dad's feeling the well run dry. it's nine tracks long and four of them are five minutes long on three minutes (maybe) worth of material. hook shortage. the anonymous cover does set the tone for me but i'd probably feel differently if this thing closed with "baby grand" rather than the three weakest tracks right in a row.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/68/Billy_Joel_-_KOHUEPT.jpg

Концерт, aka Kohuept, Kontsert, and Concert, was Billy's second live album, released to mark the six Moscow and Leningrad dates of the the Bridge tour. Running seventy-two minutes over two discs, it may be of interest to fans interested to see how earlier hits were presented by this point in Billy's arena development. His attempts to verbalize the big ideas of "Allentown" and "Goodnight Saigon" for Soviet teenagers may also be worth a listen. We won't linger on it here, but I figured we should at least mark the two covers of 1960s classics that conclude the program: The Times They Are A-Changin' and Back in the USSR. The latter was released as a single, failing to chart in the US but scraping the top 40 in Australia. Its video suggests Billy was eager to give the Iron Curtain kids a real rock 'n' roll show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYGmXPbJRq4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42Tah0DCubg

https://img.discogs.com/AkyUSXQ2wJdIvo9GfGbfMfVtDGU=/fit-in/600x579/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-6634543-1427762014-5226.jpeg.jpg

I love how Russia covers 11 time zones and there's still exactly one building that communicates "Russia."

Indeed, at that time, it meant the entire Soviet Union, which was even huger.

Phew! After those last few, I'm all

https://i.imgur.com/AqSOsn2.gif

so weird to see Billy doing the solo acoustic folk singer thing!

Back in the USSR def plays to his strengths and style

I like the slow, wait-for-the-translation messages to the audience on this album. They're hokey but feel sincere, like Billy's really hoping he can help the Russian youth realize that the corresponding American youth have been through similar struggles and have similar worries etc. I get, like, Christmas Day cease-fire vibes off of Goodnight Saigon in this context. Naive in a certain pop star way but it's a nice step beyond just saying "rock and roll is universal!" or whatever.

"Baby Grand" without Ray is a disaster though! Should have roped in some famed Soviet singing star to mix it up or not even tried.

In Soviet Russia, piano plays YOU.

"A Matter of Trust" sounding a lot beefier, closer my Addicted To Love concept. I later found a clip where Billy talks about going for a Robert Palmer sound on that but I wonder if that became clearer later after ATL actually came out. His clenched Palmer-style singing isn't as obvious as his other impressions since it's so close to the "gritty" voice he often uses but I do think it's there.

some famed Soviet singing star

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_3JckQQgTbxE/TTCd768YMTI/AAAAAAAACB0/guZnvHv4yWA/s1600/trololo-m-20100312.jpg

Looking at that hideous drop-shadow CD artwork reminds me that the vinyl album had no print on the cover, just that type design blind embossed into the solid red cover. Fitting for a double album with "Back in the USSR" and his most Beatles moment.

Billy u gotta bring yr A-game to rock the Kremlin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrSKG3TS0uER

deep state tried to shut me down won't happen #billileaks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFVZCsUYwd0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb7kJ-j_dKA

Why Should I Worry? is Billy's big number as Dodger, a mongrel with "streetwise savoir faire" and a major character in Disney's Oliver and Company. It's his sole film credit as an actor (not playing himself). The song was written by the frequent team of Dan Hartman and Charlie Midnight, whose most recent big score was "Living In America." Hartman, a name I probably should have known already, went all the way back to writing "Free Ride" while in the Edgar Winter Group, so I like to imagine he and Billy understood each other a bit.

Released November 18, 1988, the film performed decently but not spectacularly, being beaten in a head-to-head opening-weekend match with The Land Before Time though ultimately outgrossing it. See further discussion in this thread.

https://img.discogs.com/oZREjV0-2Ie4i4OPiQBi-yV2cQk=/fit-in/600x598/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-2860634-1304400544.jpeg.jpg
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Sing us a song, you're the piano mutt...

he song was written by the frequent team of Dan Hartman and Charlie Midnight, whose most recent big score was "Living In America." Hartman, a name I probably should have known already, went all the way back to writing "Free Ride" while in the Edgar Winter Group, so I like to imagine he and Billy understood each other a bit.

and "I Can Dream About You"!

I had no idea that Hartman wrote this! An okay song; would have fit in nicely on The Bridge, and is better than most of what is already on there.

Cute scene, btw, even if the movie itself hasn't aged very well (I posted about it a few years ago on that Disney thread that DC linked).

Released November 18, 1988, the film performed decently but not spectacularly, being beaten in a head-to-head opening-weekend match with The Land Before Time though ultimately outgrossing it

crazy how it outgrossed land before time which is much better remembered now

no numbers for this, but i have to assume LBT crushed it on home video. kids who saw that wanted to see it again... i don't feel like there was the same demand for O&C. an american tail had previously beat great mouse detective at the box office though, so this was in some sense a small comeback for disney. (secret of nimh didn't have disney competition, save a rerelease of bambi, but was part of the larger wave of things that were absolutely wiped out by the success of e.t.)

never heard this song before. don't think i've ever heard *of* it! i like it. totally cute, even though the verse and chorus sound like they're two different songs. he sounds way looser on this than he does on most of the bridge.

footnote 1: he's a good voice actor! he should've done more of that.

footnote 2: i was going to write that this song suggests an alternate second career for him as a randy newman hollywood songwriter guy, if he ever wanted to do the work. but then i saw that he didn't write it. so forget it.

An American Tail was my sister's favorite movie in the late '80s. Lots of sleepovers at my grandma's at which she performed "Somewhere Out There."

"Back in the USSR": nothing surprising, but the band do a good job with it

"Why Should I Worry?": I never saw this movie but I vaguely remember the advertising as a kid. the chorus of this song was used in all the commercials so that part came right back to me as I listened to the song. it's fine, I suppose. yes, better than some of the songs on "The Bridge"

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

Just Wanna Hold was the lead track on the solo debut of Mick Jones, by which name I obviously mean the iconic, genre-defining guitarist without whose riffs it is nearly impossible to imagine the sound of ... Foreigner. Sadly, this Jones's solo career stalled out, with just this one album and its underperforming singles to his name. "Just Wanna Hold," supposedly cowritten by a pseudonymous Mick Jagger, features Billy on keys and ostensibly backing vocals. It peaked at #16 on the US Rock Charts.

Billy, Christie Lee and Alexa Ray also turned up for the video shoot, but really I'm just throwing this in here because I won't have time to put the Storm Front intro together today, and because it may be a useful way to establish a baseline for that record: what was the sound of down-the-middle corporate dad-rock in 1989, and where does Billy end up sitting, relative to this template?

https://img.discogs.com/cZQGzwpB5g09EtBSFtUiTuJwwlo=/fit-in/600x590/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-6717141-1425232067-2624.jpeg.jpg

Male pattern baldness, the video

That Jones album got a major push from its label in '89; it's not even remembered as one of the year's biggest bombs.

IN THE WILD: Billy Ray In Aisle 14r

that's two songs in a row whose existence i was unaware of. wow that cover art is bad but also so familiar. that down-the-middle corporate typography.

looking again at youtube - when the hell did MTV2 play this? bizarre programming. the song is obviously trash, relying on the endless repetition of a totally forgettable refrain. and god, that drum track... this is making me think maybe corporate rock did suck. certainly says a lot that any label would think "oh yeah this will be a hit!" or even "well, this is the best thing we got out of the sessions!"

i like how billy blatantly was too busy to make it over for the actual shooting of the video, but just for the afterparty. "everybody's bringing their kids, it'll be fun!" if he even made that... i don't think there's a single shot of him with any of the rest of the band.

I was thinking M2 probably played it during one of those holiday weeks where all videos appeared in alphabetical order.

Those weeks were like Christmas for me, getting to see so many videos that hadn't seen the light of day in decades

I was about to tell a story, but then I remembered I had just told it a little over a month ago: IT'S BETTER THAN DRINKIN' ALONE: The Official ILM Track-by-Track BILLY JOEL Listening Thread

But yeah, miss u m2.

https://img.discogs.com/vilGcZe13PqRQnV4Ndfn6Xp1HGc=/fit-in/600x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-2809216-1302007291.jpeg.jpg

https://img.discogs.com/uOAYoGMXi8jHY0anVrKx09TyzkI=/fit-in/600x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-2809216-1302007299.jpeg.jpg

Storm Front, Billy Joel's eleventh and second-to-last studio pop album, was recorded in 1988 and 1989 and released October 17, 1989. Russell Javors and Doug Stegmeyer, rhythm and bass players since Turnstiles, are replaced by Joey Hunting and Schuyler Deale respectively, and longtime multi-instrumentalist band member Crystal Taliefero joins the band. Itzhak Perlman, Richard Marx, and the Memphis Horns also put in appearances. But who could replace Phil Ramone beind the boards? Why, no one less than the team of Billy himself and jukebox hero Mick Jones, who also plays on five tracks. Suddenly, "Just Want To Hold" makes a bit more sense!

Unbeknownst to me, Jones's music-industry-insider career goes back to the early 60s, he'd done intermittent stints as a songwriter when not in Spooky Tooth, and he had production credits on I think every Foreigner record as well as Van Halen's 5150. So he probably seemed a reasonable choice for the job. AllMusic's bio of him claims he had Billy produce that solo record we just encountered, but then they don't credit him in the album entry itself and I kinda don't buy it. The album was engineered by an up-and-comer named Jay Healy, who'd worked under Jones on an 80s Bad Company record and maybe some Foreigner stuff too. He'd recently done R.E.M.'s Green, among squarer fare; he'd return for River of Dreams, then engineered a string of Mariah Carey smashes before reaching possibly his career height as producer on Live's Secret Samadhi.

With three top-forty singles (including one big hit and another radio recurrent), and supported by a major tour, Storm Front sold well, peaking at #1 in the US and making the top ten in multiple other markets. It's been certified four times platinum, a substantial improvement on The Bridge if not to the level of An Innocent Man.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_7PiG1rV9Q

That's Not Her Style, the album opener, was also given a terrible sleeve and made the fifth single. It peaked at #77 on the Hot 11, and #18 on the Album Rock Tracks chart (the sort-of-precursor to today's Mainstream Rock). Almost inevitably as the fifth single from an arena-rock album, its video is a live rendition intercut with footage of excited fans, backup dancers (!), arriving aircraft, scaffolding in construction, etc. It also further brings out the New Country flavor of the song, so if that's a subgenre you dig, give it a whirl.

https://img.discogs.com/PA5XKsyeQGrlqxCN7UozWnShbK4=/fit-in/594x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-867786-1167335856.jpeg.jpg