Say Goodbye To POLLywood - Billy Joel Greatest Hits Volume I & Volume II, THE POLL

We talked about doing this in the Paul Simon poll thread and then I forgot all about it.

all your life is time magazine
i read it too
what does it mean

AND THEY WERE SHARP

AS SHARP AS KNIVES-KNIVES-KNIVES-KNIVES

alternative poll titles:

It's Still Rock and POLL to me
Uptown POLL
POLLentown :D

Imma cast a controversial vote for the Innocent Man era 'Tell Her About It'. I grew up with and loved that set of self-help rock tracks. Realizing, though, that my ex's fandom (I bought her two BJ boxsets) means this is just another thing that's kinda ruined for me at the moment.

Allentown. Still hits hard as a mother.

i'm a fan of "Tell Her About It" and a number of other shameless/ful '80s hits but went with the more canonical "Movin' Out"

JTWYA, for the production and Phil Woods solo.

I have to think on this for a while. I really love Allentown, also love Goodnight Saigon, but You May Be Right is also a childhood favorite of my sister and I.
I sang "I walked to Bedford-Stuy alone" for 20 years before I found out it was a real place, lol.

This was Mom's soundtrack for baking or cleaning the house --- and I will forever associate it with sitting cross-legged on the living room playing Lego.

*living room FLOOR, grr

My Life

Is it bad that I kinda like Captain Jack?

Oh what the hell am I saying? Of course "Piano Man" is the best song on here.

Is it bad that I kinda like every song on here?

^^^^

although I just realized I really fucking hate The Entertainer

like, a LOT

most of these, if i heard them on the radio once every 10 years, that would be cool

'you're only human' is not among them, tho

yeah the synth on that kinda gives me the shits, tbh ...and it reminds me of Julian Lennon's 'Much Too Late For Goodbye'

In deferential fealty to the me that was, I feel as though I almost have to pick something from Glass Houses. I seriously no lie loved that album when I was 13-14, one of the first I ever picked and bought all on my own (through Columbia House, 12 for a penny). It seemed so smart and tough and full of hard-won grown-up wisdom, like a training wheels version of the Elvis Costello records I'd obsess over a few years later.

I dunno, though... It's awful damn hard to deny his earlier hits: "Piano Man", "Say Goodbye to Hollywood", "New York State of Mind", "Just the Way You Are", "Movin' Out", "Only the Good Die Young", "My Life". the Nylon Curtain songs are great, too, especially "Pressure", but I almost feel they're by a different guy. And I don't give a shit about anything after that.

Think I'm gonna go for "Only the Good Die Young", just for the joy of singing along with the "sinners have much more fun" bit. Such a dangerous Billy. Seems a crime that this set doesn't include "Miami 2017", "She's Always a Woman" and "Honesty", any of which might have a shot of being my favorite Billy Joel song tomorrow. He really was the Painter of Light.

snrub is probably right that "piano man" is the all-time best thing on here, but my favorite changes all time time, largely depending on which one i'm listening to/drunkenly singing along with

can't believe I'm voting for Just the Way You Are, but it's the only one I remotely like, in a really cheesy yuppie ballad kind of way. never cared for his corny badboy greaser stuff

This album (or rather, "album") is so ingrained in my childhood memories that I don't even know how to differentiate between the classics, the dross (though "Goodnight Saigon" was always skipped, and the record usually shut off before "Second Wind" could happen) and the (should be) guilty pleasures.

Voted for the joyous, ludicrous "Scenes From an Italian Restuarant."

First there's the whistling, then that brittle piano, and then the softcore guitar vamp kicks in....

Well we ALL fall in LOVE but we DISREGAHD the DANGER

baw bawbaw BAW bawbawbawbaw
baw bawbaw BAW badabadabada

looking back, i think my first purchase from the columbia record & tape club was quite formative:

Billy Joel - Glass Houses: see above
AC/DC - Back In Black: made me a man
Blue Oyster Cult - Some Enchanted Evening: due to inclusion of The Greatest Song, set me on a path I follow still
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers - Damn the Torpedos: foretold my later appreciation of "Don't Come Around Here No More" and that one Traveling Wilburys song
Loverboy - Loverboy: kind of sucks, but "TURN ME LOOSE" (!)
Aerosmith - Toys In the Attic: rock

i wish i could remember what else. they sent me some random shit i didn't order.

^ think Supertramp's Breakfast In America was in there too

and yeah, "scenes from an italian restaurant", completely forgot abt that one, listening now, flashback headspins :)

i vote for all of them lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcvVPuJVKcs

Allentown vs. Don't Ask Me Why

i doubt anyone would vote for She's Always A Woman, but for some reason it's not included here

It wasn't on the tracklisting

I got it off the CD list, but the MP3 list has it

ugh stupid

apparently there's a version that replaces "Don't Ask Me Why" with "Honesty" which is kind of a bummer

this fuckin thing, there's like 5 versions!

I love "Vienna" and "She's Always A Woman."

But Virginia they didn't give you quite enough information...

YAGOTTA NICE WHITE DRESS AND A PARTY ON YOUR CONFIRMATION...

otm

No "We Didn't Start the Fire" (I guess they wouldn't have been able to use the word 'Greatest' in the title if that had been on it!)

This comp was released years before that single.
'Piano Man' has to be easily the worst song on this ("and the microphone smells like a beer" oh FUCK OFF). Voted for 'You May Be Right' because a) I thought the lyrics were so clever when I was 13, and b) the breaking glass sound at the beginning is probably the greatest example of the sound of glass breaking in a song (better even than Kate Bush's 'Babooshka' although sometimes PSB's 'Surburbia' sounds better).

always thought it was weird how there hadn't been a Greatest Hits volume 1 to start with, but instead a 1 AND 2 released at the same time on one compilation!
pretty bizzare even for the wacky late 80s CD era. clearly a neat trick though cause it sold like crazy.

Voting "Movin' Out", just for a change.

nylon curtain is a really excellent album all the way through.

had to vote for Movin' Out (my song) over the Innocent Man troika

This guy isn't quite as bad as some people claim though. There are many really good songs on this compilation. Besides "Movin' Out" there's "Piano Man", "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant", "The Stranger", "Just The Way You Are", "Honesty", "My Life", "Allentown", "Goodnight Saigon", "Uptown Girl" and "Tell Her About It". All great songs.

It'll have to be "Allentown" or one of the Innocent Man hits, although it sucks the title track ain't one of them.

it's nice, btw, to see this much concentrated joel-love in one place, especially on ILX. i've received more disdain IRL for my timidly admitted joel feelings than for any of my many other sins of taste.

Oh it's on Mr Veg's list of near-dealbreakers with me, lol (closely followed by Liza Minnelli, WWE and Project Runway)

Their careers form an hourglass too: Joel started selling records during Elton's late seventies slump, then both enjoyed an MTV resurgence.

billy joel or elton john. Who really sucks the most?

It's weird because the most prominent time where I put them is in the mid-90s, having to collate advertising brochures in a warehouse while listening to Top 40 radio play "River of Dreams" interchanged with "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" every hour.

There's not really any solo artist that can touch Elton's early 70's period. Billy Joel beats Elton when comparing their late 70's/early 80's periods. Mid 90's BJ craps all over EJ's mid 90's from a mile up.

I do want to amend my previous comments about later Joel - - I actually quite like "River of Dreams" (though it overstays its welcome) and I am a rare defender of "We Didn't Start The Fire" just for being REALLY REALLY REALLY fun to sing although objectively not a good song on many levels. I just think neither of them helps Billy Joel, and both would be better as weird one-hit wonder songs by bands you never heard of. He should have gone the Chris Gaines route and put out singles as... Jilly Boel or something.

There's not really any solo artist that can touch Elton's early 70's period.

gtfo

http://www.bigozine2.com/MP308/JMparis/JMparisBk.jpg

not to mention:

Paul Simon
Al Green
Bill Withers
Cohen

I prefer Elton's mid seventies to the early seventies.

Rod Stewart came close to Elton John's early '70s chart domination, didn't he?

Discussion was about the supposed hourglass career thing right, so yeah, I think Elton probably beats all of those for consistent single and album sales in that period (though not sure about Al Green?).

I think I may actually be swinging "Uptown Girl," god is it hook-laden and boy is it the perfect conclusion to my hastily sketched Billy Joel metanarrative above - - not only does he finally get the girl, he finally LIKES the girl, even though she is an uptown big-shot kind of girl, like he seems to have maybe gotten over his bullshit a little.

And I mean, Frankie Valli is awesome, why not make some more Four Seasons songs?

I don't hear many similarities between Elton John and Billy Joel.

both have some of the worst, cringe-inducing, painful-to-listen to lyrics ever

Ehhhh, lotta days I'll take a good hack over a great poet.

hey give Elton John some credit...he didn't write those lyrics

well sure, but it's sort of unbelievable that anyone would pay someone else to write such shitty lyrics. Bernie Taupin's appeal eludes me

I can totally get with Elton's melodicism, but when I listen to what he's singing it makes me want to smash my stereo

kinda the same with Joel altho I think he's much weaker in the melodies dept. I find his proto-doo wop stuff the catchiest.

lol Taupin's best known non-EJ lyric is "We Built This City"

starship really had to go get outside help for that one huh.

fuckin lyrics
how do they work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnrSqZwT2pg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uqg2rClfLIc&feature=related

Now you're posting Weird Al videos. Billy Joel wins again, my friend.

You'd better cool it off before you burn it out. You've got so much to do and only so many hours in a day.

lol Taupin's best known non-EJ lyric is "We Built This City"

and "These Dreams"!

hm, news to me!

good weird al vids

the deal with Bernie Taupin is he's kind of like what if language poetry met popular song. the only matter of import is whether the syllables sound awesome together when delivered by a good frontman, which they do. I don't doubt that if he put his mind to it, he could write a lyric consisting only of nonsense syllables that sounded good to him, and it'd still sound terrific once Elton John got hold of it.

He did, and that song was called "Nikita." It was terrible.

"Solar Prestige a Gammon"!

Taupin could write good lyrics when it suited him ("Hard Luck Stories," "Someone Saved...") but Elton didn't demand them.

so Bernie Taupin is like proto-Elizabeth Fraser

Yeah, except the Leonard Cohen and Talking Heads song have menacing music that matches the lyrical mode. They're not some hoaky serenade set to some ersatz Elton boilerplate.

i know, i was defending joel's lyrics against aero's "worst lyricist of all time" slam. personally, i like his tunes too. "menacing" can be great, but i can't imagine that "miami 2017" would be any more appealing if they were less cheesily anthemic.

i have no real problem with taupin as a lyricist, either. a lot of his stuff is cringe-inducingly schmaltzy, sure, but sometimes the shmaltz just plain works. i've always found "daniel" quite moving, and that's a product of the lyrics as much as of the music and performance.

^ not to say that i really admire taupin as a lyricist...

nor billy neither

In Praise Of... Billy Joel's "Miami 2017 (Seen The Lights Go Down On Broadway)"

Even though it's not on the greatest hits, "Summer Highland Falls" is my POO. I don't think he ever did something that good again--almost a one-off sadly. Songs in the Attic and Turnstiles (as well as The Stranger) are my go-to Billy.

Yeah "Songs In the Attic" is like an alternate "greatest hits."

IMO "Stranger" -> "52nd street" -> "songs in the attic" -> "glass houses" -> "nylon curtain" was a decent run, even though they all contain songs I hate, but I'd rather listen to a mix of my favorite 20 songs from those 5 albums than the greatest hits collections.

The thing is that Summer Highland Falls is basically a Ben Folds song with all of the smugness and immaturity taken out, and since I love Ben Folds but hate that side of him just like everybody else, that song is basically an ideal for me when it comes to piano-led pop.

Voted Allentown in this one.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

crap, never did vote in this - - - agggh!

Got it down to these:

Stranger
Scenes from an Italian Restaurant
Movin' out (Anthony's Song)
Only the Good Die Young
Uptown Girl

Still feel like in a way "Uptown Girl" is my straight favorite out of those but it feels weird not to pick one from the "classic" string of albums. Ahhhhh jeez.

btw,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3ogFWISPuw

never knew this had a video. Don't think I've even listened to the song in close to ten years except maybe if I let the record keep playing and wasn't paying attention. Not as bad as I remember.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

wow...only 3 zeroes

Can I say I'm shocked by the result? I never knew "Allentown" really had a base of support anywhere. It sent a chill down my spine as a kid but it seems a little bit...heavyhanded and obvious? But I guess like I said above, dude's a populist and sometimes an unsubtle one, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Pretty great turnout!

Also - listening to Streetlife Serenade right now and really can't fathom having "The Entertainer" on this greatest hits. Don't think that's just being familiarity with the tracklist that we had growing up...I mean, I like the song a lot, it's just that it's so sonically removed from the other stuff. Really different vibe on the Los Angeles records.

Allentown and Movin' Out both the lead-off hitters on their respective albums.

Yeah, I don't think "Easy Money" really stood a shot.

Didn't see this poll at the time; the best song is clearly Movin Out.

This album, Graceland and the West Side Story soundtrack were the trifecta of childhood holiday car albums for me.

Ooh yay what great results! And I absolutley will concur to the 3 zeros. The Entertainer alone irritates the HELL out of me

she's got a way is incredibly lovely, no? must have been a poll malfunction.

veg, if you're out there, the listening thread needs your reaction to the "you're only human" video