The music of Billy Joel punched me in the face at about the age of 5 or 6. And I can remember in the beginning saying, "Pop do we have to listen to Him again?" I couldn't stand him from what I remember. And i do not know why the music all of a sudden clicked. But it did. And my love of his music has only gotten stronger. I can remember fighting with my parents when i was 8 to get my own copy of the Innocent man album. The vinly albums worked better if they were always played on the same needle. So I was not allowed to play my father's albums on my record player in my room. I wanted my own copy.
The greatest present I have ever received was for my 8th birthday. My parents were taking me to see Billy Joel on the day of my birthday. We had great seats and then my father grabbed me and we snuck dwn to the floor and he had me on his shoulders for the rest of the show. The Lead Guitarist back then was named David Brown. It was his birthday that day too and Billy stopped the band and everyone sung Happy Birthday. Being 8 years old and standing on the floor at my 1st concert and 18,000+ people are singing Happy Birthday was very cool. I was a kid, but I felt like they were singing to me on my birthday.
Ive seen Billy Joel 3 times on my birthday, 44x all together, including the story i just told you about. The last time, that I have seen him on my birthday was in 2002. I went to Philly to see him and Elton. I bought seats in the same section number as my birthday. Figured it was good luck. They came and together and sang a few songsand then Billy went off stage and Elton did his set. I noticed that nobody was checking people's tickets as they were going down to the floor I convinced my friend to see if we can get down to the floor. As I was passing a security guy to get down to the stage he stopped me and asked for my tickets. I handed him my liscense and a $50, explained to him its my birthday, i drove all the way from Long Island can he look the other way. He handed me my liscense and the $50, wished me happy Birthday and let me go. I walked right up to the stage just as Billy's piano was rising right in front of me from the stage. That concerts stands out because it was the 1st time I got to hear Captain Jack live. I was screaming it so much frm the front row atone point Billy looked down and said he was going to get to that. I have the mp3 of that concert too. You can hear Billy respond to my screaming. But it was also noticeable because Billy announced during the set that Mark Rivera's mother had died that morning. And he was there to play the gig. It was an awesome show. The only thing I would change is the date I chose to accompany me if i could go back and change anything.
I do not understand why one of the all time selling musicians doesn't get the credit he deserves. A man who has lasted so long in this industry and continues to sell out show after show without having put out an album of new material since 1993. On American Idol, the masses pick the winner and the critics praise them as the next great thing. The masses have been saying for years that Billy Joel is one of the greatest entertainers of our time. The masses have proved it in record and concert sales. Despite the fact that radio and MTV are put him in the same category as Richard Marx. Richard Fucking Marx????!!!!!! What musician on MTV has their name hung in the rafters at Madison Square Garden and Nassau Coliseum? Who holds the record at The World's Most Famous Arena in the Greatest Cty in the World for most sold out shows in one run?
Billy Joel has supported both radio and MTV in their infancy before they have tuned into these corprate conglamerates they have morphed into in today's society. MTV no longer gives him any air or respect, but he was one of the first musicians to start recording videos for them. Why is not considered one of the greats? Because the media is all bullshit and sensationalized. Billy is up at the top selling out everywhere, and more people will read negatives about him, or anyone, then they would a basic "feel good" story. I have found a few articles recently that I have posted below. I'm going to add my two sense in italics where I see fit.
This is an article I just found online. It was written for Slate Magazine. I'm ashamed to say it was written by a fellow Long Islander. He grew up just a few miles away from where I grew up. I think he was a fan of Dawson's Creek too.
The Worst Pop Singer Ever: Why, exactly, is Billy Joel so bad?
By
Ron Rosenbaum
Posted Friday, Jan. 23, 2009, at 7:23 PM ET
This may seem an odd moment to bring up the subject of Billy Joel. But the recent death of the painter Andrew Wyeth revived a long-standing debate over whether his art is respectable or merely sentimental schlock. (Say it: good or bad?) It got me to thinking about the question of value in art and whether there are any absolute standards for judging it. It indicates the question is still alive, not relegated to irrelevance by relativism.
And then I picked up The Art Instinct, a new book by Denis Dutton, the curator of the Arts & Letters Daily Web site. The book strives valiantly to find a basis for judging the value of art from the perspective of evolutionary psychology; in it, Dutton argues that a certain kind of artistic talent offered a competitive advantage in the Darwinian struggle for survival.
Which brings me to Billy Joel—the Andrew Wyeth of contemporary pop music—and the continuing irritation I feel whenever I hear his tunes, whether in the original or in the multitude of elevator-Muzak versions. - I will say Billy gets the raw end of the deal on the radio. I get sick of hearing the same shit over and over too. I do not listen to the "Greatest Hits" unless its a live version of the song. And his B-Sides are what really makes the man great. You truly have to see him live to appreciate the man. - It is a kind of mystery: Why does his music make my skin crawl in a way that other bad music doesn't? Why is it that so many of us feel it is possible to say Billy Joel is—well—just bad, a blight upon pop music, a plague upon the airwaves more contagious than West Nile virus - really?? West Nile virus? are you really comparing music to something that causes death??? if that is not sensationalism I do not know what is- , a dire threat to the peacefulness - when are elevator rides peaceful? you are hardly ever alone in one, you are probably cramped in with total stangers who are presng up against you where even your friends dont get that close - of any given elevator ride, not rock 'n' roll but schlock 'n' roll? - again who is he tobe the ultimate critic. because someon gave him a ajob because they had to fill up sace in their magazine. We are over saturated with media it is amazing. They dont care what they write or what they write about, because they just want to sell advertising or traffic to their site, and to be sensational so they can get a following and ask for more money.
I'm reluctant to pick on Billy Joel. - Is this the author's way of saying he is a nice guy? Trying to get sympathy from his readers - He's been subject to withering contempt from hipster types for so long that it no longer seems worth the time. - So is he a hipster type to? When I was growing we had another name for them...Posers? If this are the peolpe that are bashing him, let them bash away. They are anti everything popular just because its popular. Still, the mystery persists: How can he be so bad and yet so popular for so long? He's still there. - So then what is the mystery? the line, "The People Have Spoken" comes to mind. You can't defend yourself with anti-B.J. shields around your brain. - Anti-Billy joel sheilds? Is he fucking serious? How old is he? What would an anti-Billy shield look like? Is it a hat? Or do the hipsters implant a microchip that blocks off Bily Joel sond waves? He still takes up the space, takes up A&R advances that would otherwise support a score of unrecognized but genuinely talented artists, singers, and songwriters, - Please enlighten us, whose career is Billy killing? please name some name of artists that are failing in this industry because they are under the same label as Billy Joel? with his loathsomely insipid simulacrum of rock.
Besides, some - most - people still take Billy seriously. Just the other day I was reading my old friend Jeff Jarvis' BuzzMachine blog, and Jarvis (the Billy Joel of blog theorists - he doesnt even have anything nice to say about his own friends - ) was attacking the Times' David Carr. (Talk about an uneven fight.) Carr was speculating about whether newspapers could survive if they adopted the economic model of iTunes. Attempting a snotty put-down of this idea, Jarvis let slip that he's a Joel fan: As an example somehow of his iTunes counter-theory, he wrote: "If I can't get Allentown, the original, I'm not likely to settle for a cover." Only the hard-core B.J. for Jeff! ("Allentown" is a particularly shameless selection on Jarvis' part, since it's one of B.J.'s "concern" songs - never heard of a "concern' song before - , featuring the plight of laid-off workers, and Jarvis virtually does a sack dance of self-congratulatory joy every time he reports on print-media workers getting the ax. - Does Jarvis fire the workers personally - )
Plus, there's always the chance we'll see another of those "career re-evaluation" essays that places like the New York Times Sunday "Arts & Leisure" section are fond of running about the Barry Manilows of the world. - The only resemblence to Manilow by Billy is that they both sell out. But again that means they are popular and not In Touch with the hipest of hipsters. Like the putz who wrote this bullshit piece of wasted space. - The kind of piece in which we'd discover that Billy's actually "gritty," "unfairly marginalized" by hipsters; that his work is profoundly expressive of late-20th-century alienation ("Captain Jack"); that his hackneyed, misogynist hymns to love are actually filled with sophisticated erotic angst; that his "distillations of disillusion," to use the patois of such pieces, over the artist's role ("Piano Man," "The Entertainer," "Say Goodbye to Hollywood," etc.) are in fact "preternaturally self-conscious," not just shallow, Holden Caulfield-esque denunciations of "phonies," but mentionable in the same breath as works by great artists. - Didn't Itell you this guy was a fan of dawson's Creek and ther big words -
This must be prevented! No career re-evaluations please! - What does Billy have to re-evaluate? No false contrarian rehabilitations! - I do not know where Dawson's Creek was going here. how can you have a rehabilitation of contrast? He was terrible, he is terrible, he always will be terrible. - It is my opinion that Dawson Creek here sucks, does sucks, and will always suck - Anodyne, sappy, superficial, derivative, fraudulently rebellious. Joel's famous song "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me"? Please. It never was rock 'n' roll. Billy Joel's music elevates self-aggrandizing self-pity and contempt for others into its own new and awful genre: "Mock-Rock." - Dawson Creek here doesnt like this song because Billy was pokin fun at the hipsters and the sensationalized media, and the beginning of this media saturation. He was fed up with it and that is what this album is about. Especially that song. Listen to Close to the Borderline from that album. It is subject matter that Billy updates in his sogn No Man's Land some 20+ years later.
And the badness of really bad art is, I believe, always worth affirming, since it allows us to praise—and to examine why we praise—"good" or "great" art. - But isnt good art supposed to be polarizing? no matter what there are always going to be haters.. -
Therefore, I decided to make a serious effort to identify the consistent qualities across Joel's "body of work" (it almost hurts to write that - im sure it doesnt hurt as much as reading your 'body of work" -) that make it so meretricious, so fraudulent, so pitifully bad. And so, risking humiliation and embarrassment, - from who??? does that mean the other 99,999,999+ people who have bought a Billy Joel album were embarrassed too? I ventured to the Barnes & Noble music section and bought a four-disc set of B.J.'s "Greatest Hits," one of which was a full disc of his musings about art and music. I must admit that I also bought a copy of an album I already had—Return of the Grievous Angel, covers of Gram Parsons songs by the likes of the Cowboy Junkies and Gillian Welch, whose "Hickory Wind" is just ravishing— ravishing? no need to comment that said enough - so the cashier might think the B.J. box was merely a gift, maybe for someone with no musical taste. Yes, reader. I couldn't bear the sneer, even for your benefit. - Dawson's Creek here is just showed where his musical tastes are. Typical hipster, listening to indie rock and knocking the big guy - And I think I've done it! I think I've identified the qualities in B.J.'s work that distinguish his badness from other kinds of badness: It exhibits unearned contempt. Both a self-righteous contempt for others and the self-approbation and self-congratulation that is contempt's backside, so to speak. Most frequently a contempt for the supposed phoniness or inauthenticity of other people as opposed to the rock-solid authenticity of our B.J. - Name song where he puts himself on a pedestal?
I'm not saying, by the way, that contempt can't make for great art. Dylan's "Positively 4th Street," for example, is one of the most contemptuous songs ever written, but it redeems itself through the joyfulness of its black-humored eloquence and wit. And Springsteen lost something when he lost his contempt and became a love-for-the-common-people would-be Woody Guthrie.
But let's go through the "greatest hits" chronologically and see how this "contempt thesis" works out. -
First let's take "Piano Man." You can hear Joel's contempt, both for the losers at the bar he's left behind in his stellar schlock stardom and for the "entertainer-loser" (the proto-B.J.) who plays for them. Even the self-contempt he imputes to the "piano man" rings false.
"Captain Jack": Loser dresses up in poseur clothes and masturbates and shoots up heroin and is an all-around phony in the eyes of the songwriter who is so, so superior to him. - The songwriter is not being superior to this "loser". Billy is showing you what can happen and what he has seen drugs do to a person. He paints the guy a loser because he is one. its an anti-drug song if ever there was one. It doesnt sensationalize drug use like most popular songs. in the suburban setting, drugs are very prevelant.
"The Entertainer": Entertainers are phonies! Except exquisitely self-aware entertainers like B.J., who let you in on this secret.
(Compare The Band's beautiful, subtle tribute to Dylan's entertainer insecurities in "Stage Fright." I love the line in that song, "he got caught in the spotlight": such a haunting image of a shy entertainer.) - Again Billy is mocking the crtics and musicindustry. Not talking about himself at all. Know your subject matter befre you speak of any please.
"Say Goodbye to Hollywood." Hollywood is phony! Who knew? God, doesn't B.J. ever get tired of showing us how phony the phonies of this phony world are? Could someone let B.J. know he's phoning it in with all this phoniness at this point? Isn't there something, well, a bit phony about his hysteria over phoniness? - You mean LA isn't full of full of shit people? Why criticize someone for pointing out the obvious. The point of the song is good bye to those people. hes coming home to Ny where people are not as phony. They will tell you to your face unlie hiding behind an artice in a magazine with no chance f a confrontation with heir subject matter He can't even celebrate his "New York State of Mind" without displaying his oh-so-rebellious contempt for "the movie stars in their fancy cars and their limousines." - That is one line in a beautiful sogn celebrating his home state. what is a better line to describe Hollywood - You think Billy Joel has really never ridden in a limo? - You are so smart aren't you Dawsons? I'm sure Billy has ridden in a limousine. But I bet that when he wrote that line it wasnt the luxury to him it is today. again, know your subject matter - u
"The Stranger": This is B.J. lifting that great Beatles line about Eleanor Rigby "wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door."* You should see the heavy-handed mask featured on the expensive two-disc "legacy" reissue of "The Stranger" album. So deep! Yes, B.J., you've nailed it: We're all phonies hiding our true faces! Everyone wears a mask! Who woulda known it without B.J. to tell us? - Did you give Springsteen shit for telling us we were Born in the USA?
"Scenes From an Italian Restaurant": I can't stand it, but at least this is one of B.J.'s tributes to "the little people" that—although it's annoying and clichéd to the max—doesn't completely hold its characters in contempt. - This a tribute to "the little people"? Its about the king and queen from high schools fall from grace. How is that a tribute?
"Anthony's Song"—straight up contempt for lower-middle-class aspirations. B.J.'s down with the authentic stuff in life. This is the one with the line about the "heart attack-ack-ack" where he attack-ack-acks people who work two jobs so they can "trade in their Chevy for a Cadillac"-ack-ack, something B.J. would never do. No phony "movin' up" for him! - He is not attacking anyone. Doesnt say anything bad about those people. He just doesnt want that life for himself. He has bigger dreams. Nothing wrong with dreaming big. There is no cntempt. I think Dawson's Creek has been using his Word Of The Day Toilet Paper and is trying to sound smart -
"Only the Good Die Young": Contempt for the Catholic religion. I know: It's spirited if anti-spiritual, but, still ... I've heard some Catholic girls opine on its most famous line ("Catholic girls start much too late"), and they ain't buyin' it. B.J. is no James Joyce. - Hes just trying to get laid, she is Catholic Girl who sticks to her beliefs. This isnt contempt for the Catholic Religion. Im sure he just added that so he can add catoilc as a key word to be searched for.
"She's Always a Woman": First, has there ever been a more blatant—or blatantly inept—case of attempted artistic theft than "She's Always a Woman"? It's such a lame imitation of Bob Dylan's "Just Like a Woman." (B.J.'s woman "hides like a child" where Dylan's "breaks just like a little girl.") B.J.'s woman also: is prone to "casual lies," "steals like a thief," "takes care of herself," and "carelessly cuts you and laughs ..." Poor B.J., recycling every misogynist cliché in the book.
- Dawson's Creek is missing the point again. in the song he is saying this woman might be all those "cliche" to you but shes always a woman to him.
What right do you have to criticize such a popular artist? - What right do you have to criticize anybody? Aren't you just being elitist? - Yes, but you are also being a huge hypocrit. Bashing a guy for his views and his music which with one lip of the dial you can change the song. But yet here you are putting out your views and opinions. Why are your views more important than someone else's views???
No, you don't understand: Billy's from my 'hood - hood? are you a black urban youth? - , mid-Long Island—Hicksville, to be precise (I'm from Bay Shore)—so I'm sensitive to his abuse of our common roots. - How does he abuse Long Island? What kind of sensationalized comment is that? He helped put Long Island on the map. Once I wrote something about the curse of being from the Guyland. In it I said something heartfelt: New Jersey may have a rep as a toxic dump for mob victims to fester in, but at least it brought forth Bruce Springsteen. The ultimate Guyland humiliation is to be repped to the world by Billy Joel. So I feel entitled to be cruel—may I continue? - It pains me to know you call Long Guyland home. It really really does.
OK. But isn't there anything you like?
Fair question. I've always liked "The Longest Time" and "An Innocent Man." - Because those songs fall into the genre before classic rock started which is what this hipster loves -
May I get back to the contemptible crap?
OK, but focus.
Well, I really can't stand the "man of the people" stuff. Like "Allentown" and "The Downeaster 'Alexa.' " Yeah, he's a real working man, that B.J. Sure, other artists strike that pose, but somehow with B.J. the strain of his pretension is just too much to bear. - name another musican/actor who has done more for Long Island asshole?
OK, but focus.
Well, I really can't stand the "man of the people" stuff. Like "Allentown" and "The Downeaster 'Alexa.' " Yeah, he's a real working man, that B.J. Sure, other artists strike that pose, but somehow with B.J. the strain of his pretension is just too much to bear. - name another musican/actor who has done more for Long Island asshole?
What else? What if you had to choose one song as the epitome of B.J. badness?
OK, I think it would have to be "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me."
Why?
It shows how completely, totally clueless Billy Joel is. It suggests he wrote it because he thought people regarded him as an outmoded relic because he doesn't wear the right hip-signifier clothes. That it's a matter of his wide ties vs. New Wave skinny ties, that it's because his car doesn't have white-wall tires or because he doesn't dress "like a Beau Brummell" or hang out with the right crowd or look like Elvis Costello.
He thinks people can't stand him because he dresses wrong or doesn't look right.
Billy Joel, they can't stand you because of your music; because of your stupid, smug attitude; because of the way you ripped off your betters to produce music that rarely reaches the level even of mediocrity. You could dress completely au courant and people would still loathe your lame lyrics.
It's not that they dislike anything exterior about you. They dislike you because of who you really are inside. - Have you ever really met the man? Had a concersation? Who really is Billy Joel, inside? Please enlighten us with more of your overused big words Dawson's Creek. - They dislike you for being you. - Who is they? Your fellow hipsters? - At a certain point, consistent, aggressive badness justifies profound hostility. They hate you just the way you are.
- And at some point your meaningless rants and big words will get you fired one day. and Not Your Billy Joel will be there to praisethe day. -
To Be Continued.............................
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