I'm trying to verse myself more on Billy Joel as I work my way through the wheel barrel full of studio albums I have from him. Today's picking was Glass Houses, and album which has a handful of songs I know from the radio back in the 80's.
As I made my way through it, I was actually pleasantly surprised by Don't Ask Me Why. It's always fun to stumble across a song that you find yourself saying, "Hey, I know that," but you had forgotten about it. I love those moments, and it's one of my favorites while doing these Retro Spins posts.
I think what surprised me most about this album was how quickly it ended. I felt like I had only just started listening to it when it was suddenly over. What was equally surprising about this was that I honestly wasn't hearing stuff that was mind blowing. You May Be Right, Don't Ask Me, It's Still Rock And Roll To Me, and a new song (to me), All For Leyna, were all I really heard that I liked. I suppose this was still 40% of the album, which isn't a bad average.
I've never been a massive fan of Billy Joel, and I don't suspect that's going to change anytime soon. However, it's still nice to play a song here and there from him every once and a while, and I'm glad to have four more to add to that shuffle.
In addition to playing some tunes, I also took the time to straighten up my long neglected shelf of music related VHS and DVD's. I got hooked on these when I was interested in rekindling the prime life of MTV. However, it quickly dawned on me that this was probably not worth pursing. There are so many VHS and DVD's out there, which is ironic because at the same time, the amount of music videos unavailable on any home release far outweighs what is. It would never be enough because something would always be missing. It's just not feasible to run down this rabbit hole.
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Love can inspire you in so many ways. Take Billy Joel's 1983 album, An Innocent Man. Joel was head over heals in love with his new wife, Christie Brinkley, and this showed big time in song after song which was either dedicated to her, inspired by her, about her, or all three of the above. Too bad feelings on behalf of Billy Joel seem to only been defined by the records he can sell, as he would betray her, and the two would split by 1994.
Sorry, that may sound harsh, but I have a great disrespect for people, male or female, who can't honor the vows they've made to each other.
Anyway, I don't want to talk about that nonsense, and I'm sure you don't either. If you're reading this, you're hear for my review on the album itself, and not the man behind it.
I admittedly haven't heard many Billy Joel albums in their entirety, but so far, this may be one of the better ones I have. It's got a lot of great tracks confined within its forty minute run time, and even produced Joel's third number one hit, Tell Her About It, the first being Just The Way You Are from his 1977 album, The Stranger, and is second being Still Rock And Roll To Me from his 1980 album, Glass Houses.
Out of the ten tracks, I actually pulled five for my shuffle list; An Innocent Man, The Longest Time, Tell Her About It, Uptown Girl and Keeping The Faith. Though I'm honestly not sold 100% on that last one. I'll have to give it another listen to see if it stays on the list.
Between it's rock and oldies style tracks, I found a bit of enjoyment out of the album overall. It was unique and refreshing in a way from the typical style of 80's music I usually listen to. While it didn't turn me into a major fan of his work, I do have several more of his albums which I'll eventually get around to hearing.
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My history with Billy Joel starts around 1983, or as I like to call them, The Christie Brinkley Years. Though Uptown Girl was a frequent video on MTV, the impact for me personally was pretty limited. His follow up album, The Bridge was nowhere near my radar. This is interesting in retrospect, as it features, Modern Woman, one of the tunes from the Ruthless People soundtrack.
Billy Joel would swing back around to me in 1989 with his album Storm Front for two reasons. The first, the song, We Didn't Start The Fire. The second, because my brother got his hands on the cassette, and wouldn't stop playing it. Joel seemed to disappear from that point on, but reappeared in 1993 with his powerhouse hit, River Of Dreams. He would disappear again thereafter, and return briefly in 2001 for his last studio album to date.
Despite this lack of studio albums, he's remained fairly active in the touring scene, which I suppose isn't a bad way to do it. When you've passed your prime, in terms of selling albums, there's no shame in making money that people still want to hear you sing from your catalog.
But so far, this post has only encompassed his pop success and eventual bowing out of the studio life. Where did it all start?
According to his own words, Billy Joel wanted to be a song writer, not a rock star. When he conceived the material for his first album, Cold Spring Harbor, he envisioned the music being for other artists. This changed when he received the advice that if he wanted people to hear his music he needed to cut an album, and then go on tour to promote it.
Though his debut album would be mildly successful in Japan and the U.K., his performance of Captain Jack live on a radio show would be what garnered the attention of Columbia Records. Shifting labels, which of course lead to the usual slew of legal battles with his prior label, Joel would release, Piano Man in 1973. The album serves as his public breakthrough album, drawing in many fans.
Joel would follow this album up with 1974's Streetlife Serenade, and 1976's Turnstiles. However, it wouldn't be until 1977's The Stranger that he would finally achieve a critical and commercial breakthrough.
Despite this success, and an additional album, 1978's 52nd Street, the artist was still missing one major piece of success. Enter 1980's Glass Houses. Though it featured several singles, the stand out track, It's Still Rock And Roll To Me, would soar up the charts, becoming his first number one song. This album was followed up with 1982's The Nylon Curtain.
Welcome back to 1983's An Innocent Man. With massive radio and MTV friendly hits filling it from front to back, it would be, Tell Her About It, that would become Joel's second number one hit. This album then comes full circle back to where it started. My history with Billy Joel starts around 1983...
However, before I dig into today's Retro Spins, I'll close the loop on his number one hits. As you may recall reading, I said he's had three. That final one was the lead track from Storm Front, We Didn't Start The Fire.
With all of that summed up, here we are with today's Retro Spins. A look and listen to Billy Joel's 1971 debut, Cold Spring Harbor.
First and foremost, it's fair for me to state up front that while I like some of his music, I am by no means a Billy Joel fan. His iconic hits, such as, Piano Man, Allentown, You May Be Right, and all the others that encompass his greatest hits albums, are decent songs, but not necessarily something I make an effort to listen to. For the most part, it's before my time, and not within the sweet spot era I typically hand around in, music wise.
It became apparently quickly that his debut wasn't going to be up my alley with the opening track being a vocal and piano piece. It rang true with the "boring" sense I get from a lot of his music, and it stayed this way for the entire play through. By the end of it, I couldn't even tell you what any of the ten tracks on the album were. Nothing stood out to me.
I will give the album credit for being mellow and calming, but it's also not very entertaining. It was just background noise.
The irony to all of this, is that if I were to look at my Billy Joel music collection, which I will, the reality of despite me not being a big fan, I actually have ten of his thirteen studio albums. The only one's I'm missing are this debut album, Streetlife Serenade and Fantasies & Delusions. The completest in me says I should buy them to, "finish the set", but the reality side of me screams, "stop buying crap I don't want!" Maybe if I find them in a dollar bin, but I'm certainly not going to actively track them down.
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Disclaimer:
They Toy Box does not endorse or contribute to piracy. Retro Spins
posts are intended for educational and entertainment purposes only. None
of the music discussed here is available for sale, downloading or
distribution.
I'm not a big Billy Joel fan, which is ironic, because I own eleven of his thirteen studio albums, one greatest hits and one live album. In my defense, the majority of them were picked up from dollar bins during a phase where I was actively trying to get introduced to popular singers / bands which I overlooked in the 70's and 80's.
When looking into the history of this album, as I often do when listening to a CD, it was interesting to find that for as long as Joel has been recording / releasing music, he only has three number one hits. One of which is We Didn't Start The Fire from Storm Front - A classic, if not slightly confusing, song. As a point of reference, his other two number one hits were, Still Rock and Roll To Me from his 1980 Glass Houses album and Tell Her About It from his 1983 An Innocent Man album.
For being such a highly acclaimed album, I was actually surprised there were only a handful of songs I liked from it. One of them was, of course, We Didn't Start the Fire, as well as, I Go To Extremes. My favorite from the record is by far, Downeaster 'Alexa'. I love the story the latter track tells, and quite frankly, it's a masterpiece as far as I'm concerned.
Despite its minimal appeal to me, I still look forward to actually delving further into the massive collection of Billy Joel albums I own. It's no secret the man has hits. We are, after all, talking about a singer / songwriter / multi-instrumental man who has fifteen compilation discs under his belt to compliment his career. Shoot, when you have more compilations than studio albums, there's got to be something about you people like, right?
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