Frank Zappa vs. Billy Joel

btw, I can't stand either.

Well, I'm right here of course :-)

This is kind of a silly and superficial comparison. I say this not having heard a note of Mr. Joel's classical composing, but until recently I don't think Joel wanted to be seen as anything more than a pop songwriter while Zappa was always pretty upfront about wanting to be seen as a composer. Additionally, Joel's work doesn't have the (for lack of a better term) "conceptual continuity" that FZ consciously and consistently put into all of his work. I mean to say that even in Zappa's most negligible stuff (IMHO, of course, as to what that was), you could always detect some link, musically or lyrically, to something he'd done before; I just don't hear that in Joel's music. Additionally, and this is gonna sound pretentious so forgive, but FZ was pretty thoroughly modernist (arguably post-modernist) in his music and outlook and the sources from which he drew upon, trying to take whatever musical ideas he had (whether from doo-wop, rock, or folks like Varese and Stravinsky) further; Joel seems much more classicist, looking backwards to Tin Pan Alley-style songwriting (and I would imagine that his classical tastes would lean more towards Mozart, Chopin and Schubert than Stravinsky or Varese) and integrating anything more new or modern within that musical framework.

I don't mean to knock Billy Joel or exault Frank Zappa simply on the basis of the foregoing. I've even been known to stick up for Billy Joel on occasion -- I think he has written pleasant enough music at times, the main problem being that it's overplayed.

As for the similarity in lyrical conceits -- I think that's just something of a parlor game, that you could match any 2 musicians and play. Billy Joel and Thom Yorke, or Frank Zappa and Madonna. Anyone game for either of those? :-)