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

this one gives me all sorts of michael penn power-pop vibes. super earwormy.

the lyrics are a little (or a lot) on-the-nose and lead to some weird, un-billy phrasing, in both the way he packs a few extra syllables into the choruses and the quirky way he's breaking up his phrases in the verses ("somewordsare / notheardtill" "yourrolewas / protective"), like this is a lyric he really really needs to get off his chest, no matter what it's gonna take to do so. take that, mr. ex-manager. AHH-AHH-AAAAH-AH!

see also this thread, especially nabisco's posts: Is there a name for that genre of turn-of-the-90s pop-rock with the positive vibes, huge guitar leads, and gated drums?

feel like this album is on the mid-90s side of the glossy production ravine. it's not quite the unplugged or unplugged-inspired sound of later back-to-basics efforts like Bringing Down The Horse, but it's a lot warmer and a lot more band-like than Storm Front. see also Off The Ground versus Flowers in the Dirt, etc.

From the POV of someone who enjoys his music, I sure am glad he got all pissed and jaded again.

The Michael Penn comparison is interesting. I can definitely hear it in the chorus, which sounds like at least two of the songs on his album Resigned that I can recall offhand. Penn would never have been this snotty or aggressive in his verses, though. You can associate a lot of things with Billy, but I'm not sure "positive vibes" is one of them.

I know its early in the proceedings here, but I am relieved at how good this album is still sounding to me, so far. Not having played it in years, I was expecting to smile at the title track and be bored by the rest of it, but I actually quite like the two big rock numbers that open up the record ("big rock numbers" being the turn that Billy took on The Bridge and Storm Front that damed those albums for me--well, that and shit production and songwriting). I know, from glancing at the track listing, that there are two songs on this album that make me cringe, but both of those songs already sounded bad to me in '93, and I (otherwise) loved the album back then, so we'll see.

I'm not loving this song tbh - six minutes is REALLY pushing it even though the bones are there. But I really like the vocal on it - not hearing either the strain or the head cold that's cropped up elsewhere. This could have been recorded in the session right after "Captain Jack."

Michael Penn could be snotty:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9F0Qg3k4SQ

Good call on "Seen the Doctor." I stand corrected!

This verse, in particular, is like early Costello temporarily losing his composure and just are associating hilarious rhymes:

I'm breathing
But it's become a chore
Now that I've seen the doctor
You're just a fucking bore
Like Dorothy Lamour
Dolled up in Singapore
To meet the Commodores
Don't call me anymore

*FREE associating

that's a good album – totally forgotten

as soon as I saw the title, the chorus of this song came back to me even though I last heard it twenty years ago - Billy can write an indelible chorus. Reminded me of ELO even more than the Beatles, though the way the verse suddenly kicks into the bright major key chorus immediately brought to mind "Sowing the Seeds of Love". So far, he sounds very energized on this album, and for once, the singles aren't frontloading the album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75TlfVROTIg

Blonde Over Blue is a muse-that-makes-everything-all-right song. "I wanted to write something that Roy Orbison would sing." This making-of video, though not following the creation of the song in a linear way, reveals a lot about the process at this point, and the Joel-Kootch relationship.

Someone mention Bryan Ferry?

hi!

The opening synth in "Blonde Over Blue" reminds me of The Cars' "Touch and GO."

I love the tension-and-release of the jerky new wave of the verses--the first time he's gone there since jerky new wave was fashionable--and the florid chorus. The verses remind me, oddly, as much of They Might Be Giants' "She's an Angel" as they do, say, Elvis Costello, and I really never thought I'd be invoking TMBG here.

the "psycho" verse synth reminds me of "you got lucky." i wish it were more synthy and less "synth strings." i wish - and i'm really turning into a broken record - that it weren't five minutes long.

i also miss liberty on drums and am glad he'll be back for the next song... this is tasteful enough work from zack alford, and maybe a good fit for a "maturing" billy but maybe it would be good to have more forceful presences pushing against the song and taking it places. or maybe i've just been prejudiced by that making-of video, which suggests nobody was sure about the rhythm going into the chorus, but that all sensed that something was keeping it from taking flight. i wonder if one of billy's old, more melodic piano lines might have helped there, if he could have loosened what i assume is the arena-driven pressure to always know exactly where the beat is.

I'm liking this album so far!

guitars in the chorus are lovely. damn billy, really bringing it for your last pop album

i agree with doc that this goes on somewhat too long though

I hate the drum sound too (not the drumming, though).

Between the new wave verses, the breezy chorus, the jazzy Steely Dan changes in the bridge, and the Orbison voice, this is an interesting tune! surprising how well it works

the "psycho" verse synth reminds me of "you got lucky."

i'm hearing "spirits in the material world"

yeah, totally!

I like my "Touch and Go" analogy best, sorry

i'm here for the "touch and go" analogy too!

I did almost write "Spirits" though.

Let's just say that this is a more assured New Wave, uh, homage than what he put out in 1983.

the jazzy Steely Dan changes in the bridge

yeah that instrumental break is very aja.

damn billy, really bringing it for your last pop album

i'm starting to get angry at billy for up and quitting after this album. but at the same time starting to admire him that much more for quitting while he was near the top of his game.

as much as i like them more than most ppl itt, the kinda audible exhaustion of the last two records isn't here so far at all

and even though i dread getting it stuck in my head when we finally arrive at it, there's so much animation to the big hit on this record that it makes "fire" and "extremes" seem considerably more labored in comparison

I like The Big Hit more than "Fire" and "Extremes" by like a factor of 10.

i still have a lot of affection for the wordless "lion sleeps tonight"-esque bit he includes in the hook, but we'll get to that when we get there

i like how confident he sounds on this album. this is his swagger album. he's spent so much of his career seemingly trying to prove something. here he's like i know shit sucks in the world but shit's pretty good at home and i can craft a pretty fine tune any time i want and bitch i'm billy joel. i like the pliability of his voice in "blonde and blue," and i like the pliability of the rhythm, too. not the most obvious billy joel song but he just kind of wills it into being, because he can. please don't let me down, rest of river of dreams.

Another comparison to the chorus here is Genesis's "That's All" - "truth is I loved you / more than I wanted to."

bitch i'm billy joel

the true title of river of dreams

"blonde and blue,"

billy's title is better than mine.

yeah this is really good! i like the drumbeat in the verse, the synth stabs, the little new wavey guitar under it, the way his voice goes up into falsetto on "blonde over BLOOOOOOOOO"

the bridge is kinda arty for sec there too

seriously this was NOT what i was expecting at all after being super underwhelmed by the non-singles on the last 2 albums, i thought this was gonna be a real dispirited affair, with a suspicion that the title track/hit was possibly a leftover from the Innocent Man era he'd had sitting on the shelf

honestly "Blonde Over Blue" might be one of my fav Billy Joel songs now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PtSIJwXhqY

A Minor Variation is a blues exercise with just a pinch of Otis.

...and more than a pinch of robert palmer in the way he begins the verses with the double-tracked chest/falsetto vocal. which is pretty much the only part of the song i like. this is a wisp of a hint of an idea for a mood stretched out over a way-too-long five and a half minutes.

the main intro first verse riff reminds me of having band practice and someone starts playing some little lick and everyone joins in and you are all like hey that's pretty fun so someone records it quick then you play it back at next week's practice you are all excited to get back to it and then you play it back and yr all like ehhh...that's kinda boring :/

Well, we were due for one of these.

This was one of the two that I was dreading. Listening back now, there's a crispness to it that doesn't hurt, but Billy stuttering and wailing through a laboured pastiche is about the last thing in the world that I'd ever want from him.

ooh now i'm curious what the other one is

"it's such a sad composition!" - billy reviewing his own song

this is the longest song ever recorded

boring filler yeah but less irritating to me than similarly-situated material on the last record. i'm repeating myself but the slightly more convincing sense of musicians in a room playing off each other really really helps, though in this case it's helping it fade into the background rather than helping me like the song. idk it was probably pleasant to play but it's a little worrisome that nobody vetoed its large footprint in the tracklist.

its large footprint in the tracklist

is this the only billy joel lp that backloaded, rather than frontloaded, its singles? the two bigs ones are both on side 2, taking up space that otherwise could've been used for filler like this!

i wonder how much of the frontloading was phil ramone. it wasn't absent in the pre-phil LPs but it was very consistent on those, and it also happens on, e.g. still crazy after all these years, in a way that doesn't seem to be true of kootch's henley blockbusters.