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

this is liberty on drums right? bc he's fucking killing it

"ok i've only got one track on this album, better bring out the metal fills"

liberty delaying the beat on the last line of the verse ("my faith has fallen away")... exquisite

I like the wearied scornfulness of the lyric ("I'm old and tired of war"), but I really get what Alfred is saying about the mannered vocal. Hearing this in 2017, I'm mostly reminded of Brandon Flowers.

guys I am pretty sure this is Boston

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVSxWCosMM0

All About Soul opens side two and is part of Billy's "faith being rediscovered" section of the album. Backing vocalists include Color Me Badd as well as Frank Simms, better known as "the voice behind such iconic characters as the Kool-Aid Man, The Craver (the bug-eyed, fuzzy mascot of Honeycomb Cereal), the GEICO ringtone, and more."

Released as the album's second single in a remixed version (listen here), and backed with a non-album cut that we'll come back around to, it made the top 40 in several markets and peaked at #29 in the US (#6 on Adult Contemporary). The video, a four-minute "live in the studio" rendition, looks ready to take VH1 by storm, even if a piano-less Billy seems unsure what to do with his hands.

If that's not enough versions for you, One Final Serenade points us to the demo version, clearly titled "Jericho Road" but dubbed "Motorcycle Song" for the My Lives box set.

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"Shades of Gray": first song that's a misstep for me. The vocal style is so restrained compared to the arrangement. I like that he's trying some new ideas, but this one isn't good

"All About Soul": this got a lot of play on the AC station I grew up with, and I always had a soft spot for it. Melodically, this is classic Joel - catchy, straightforward. The "na-na-na" part especially is hard to shake. But I much prefer the shortened radio version that cuts out a full verse/chorus. 6 minutes is too long

Oh I didn't see you linked the radio version. Time to see if it actually matches my memory!

Enjoying the "Billy Joel's Approximately Infinite Shoulders" aspect of the cover art

"All About Soul," which I also remember getting a radio push, is a better "I Go to Extremes."

The florid vocal style of "Shades of Grey" applied to a composition that warrants it. Unfortunately, I'm not really a fan of this style.

I have a memory of his performing it on SNL.

Man, this one just isn't sticking in my head. I could see the hook (with the backing vocals especially) eventually locking into my brain the way the chorus of "That's Not Her Style" did, but the rest just floats away as soon as it's done.

the woman's got soul!

"All About Soul," which I also remember getting a radio push, is a better "I Go to Extremes."

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, December 10, 2017 12:03 AM (twenty hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i guess i see this but the chorus is much less tidy, it's just kinda strolling unconsciously through its changes. it's not leaping out at me as a Great Song but it certainly exists and seems to earn it. album version's length is staggering but possibly the choir and the handclaps are worth it

Neither is a great song, but AAS > IGTE as far as late '80s boomer soul cliches go.

you just dislike it bc it doesn't go to extremes

album version is twice as long as it needs to be and the emoting is twice as big as it needs to be, but it's catchy, the craft is strong and the na-na-na's are a great payoff. a damn good boomer soul cliche, imo.

"i go to extremes" comparison otm.

running time wise, it could be called "I Go To Great Lengths"

haha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gav66byYJMw

Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel) takes it back to Billy and his piano, with some strings adding color. Joel recalls it being inspired by Alexa Ray, age six or seven, asking about what happens after people die. He connects this inquiry to his declining relationship with Christie Brinkley; they divorced in August 1994, which I probably should have mentioned as part of the background to the album overall. Though the song reminds me again of Nilsson, it reportedly began life as a monophonic plainchant introduction to "The River of Dreams" (in Latin and everything!), then for a while was an interlude within that track, and then late in the album's gestation it was plucked free and turned into a song in its own right.

As a single (here's the video) it peaked at #77 on the Hot 100 (#18 on Adult Contemporary); it is the last single released from a non-compilation Billy Joel album. It ultimately became a children's book (like "New York State of Mind") in 2004, and has been covered many times, most notably by Celine Dion.

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This is the other one I was dreading. A lot of this was timing: for some reason, a drippy lullaby to a child didn't strike me as all that cool when I was 15. These days, I admit, I'm more apathetic towards it: it is what it is, and more to the point, I'm not curmudgeon enough to begrudge new(ish) parents one token song of this nature (hell, even Jay Z has one).

beats liam gallagher's!

also i'm just a sucker for billy singing over the piano in an unforced voice. one of pop's great ineffable combinations imho.

Yeah I think one is somewhat affecting. Definitely not as good as something like "She's Got a Way", but still pretty. Could do without the last verse, the "lullabyes go on and on" one. Don't make it so easy for us to criticize you, Billy

lovely and, yes, very nilsson-y. a classic billy joel album closer, not used as an album closer for reasons that i believe will become obvious in three days.

i hate the way he stretches out and enunciates the word "ocean." if i may quibble.

so River of Dreams exceeded expectations, no? I think it's one of his five best.

https://i.imgur.com/aK5xTKZ.jpg

"No, it's very sweet, Daddy. Um. Wanna do 'Movin Out' again?"

it's definitely much, much better than i'd always been led to believe by AllMusic. i dunno how often i'd pull it out and listen to it but i was prepared for a completely tuneless slog by a man convinced he was supposed to write some songs but with no interest in writing any. it's more like a man interested in writing songs, whose powers who aren't quite what they used to be but who still has an ear for a hook and who, thank god, is back to a decent producer making him sound good.

can't go top five, at least based on what we've heard so far. for me it's, in some order, the run from turnstiles through innocent man, minus nylon curtain. i like my billy albums stacked with hook-packed singles and quality pastiche, i guess.

It's exceeded my (very low) expectations.

river of dreams has been my favorite thing about this listening party. i wrote it off almost immediately, in its time, as an album of those aforementioned boomer soul cliches. the two previous albums had severely tested my billy devotion and i never even thought to give this one a fair shot. where did this burst of creativity come from? it may well be top five for me.

it's better than a couple of those '70s albums.

it's better than streetlife serenade for sure... i'd need to go back and listen to the first two to be sure. as rough and reedy as cold spring harbor was, there's something about the enthusiastic energy of a young and less-trained songwriter that appeals to me. some of these later songs, i feel like billy's main inspiration was finding a chord change he hadn't used before that he thought was neat.

on a related note, i recently picked up the self-titled Hassles album, put it on for the first time last night and it sounded great. totally and utterly generic for the period (garage band doing soul covers, struggling to be psychedelic in the vein of Moby Grape or something), but i like the period and i like teenage billy's rockin' instincts on the electric organ. i think once we've wrapped up the chronology i'll double back for some selection of tracks from that period, even if it's just me on the thread....

I probably like it better than any 70s album except The Stranger.

I will grudgingly confess that RoD is better than I remembered, but is still not going to become a fixture on my turntable.

i think once we've wrapped up the chronology i'll double back for some selection of tracks from that period, even if it's just me on the thread

i believe you will not be alone on the thread. and while i don't know if this makes it better or not, in my memory the second hassles album, hour of the wolf, was more, um, interesting.

After The Stranger, Glass Houses, and Innocent Man, RoD is probably my next favorite, but those three are in their own tier

man i love this song, wow

the minor key derivation in the middle is such a rich choice

song sorta indirectly reminds me of "vienna"

i think i meant to say "digression" not "derivation" lmao

this is the first time i've felt motivated to skip ahead. album is quality all the way to the end imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo_vn_Ilsu8

The River of Dreams, lead single off the album of nearly the same title, was Billy Joel's last big hit. On the Hot 100 for 27 weeks, it peaked at #3 in October of 1993 (with Mariah Carey's "Dreamlover" at #1 and SWV's double-A-side of "Right Here (Human Nature)" and "Downtown" at #2). It also made it to #3 in the UK, behind songs called "Mr. Vain" and "It Keeps Rainin' (Tears From My Eyes)" which are both ciphers to me. Meanwhile it hit #1 in Australia and New Zealand, and top ten in a half-dozen other markets. Finally, it hit #1 on Adult Contemporary, and since I haven't done this in a while let me just run down the top five to give a sense of what that chart looked like at this date: at #2, Tina Turner's "I Don't Want To Fight" (dethroned by Billy) then Sting's "Fields of Gold," "Dreamlover" again, and Michael Jackson's "Will You Be There."

Billy's described the songwriting in instinctive, unforced terms - came in a dream, Biblical phrases started popping up in the shower, "I still don't really know what that song is about," et cetera. As mentioned yesterday, it has something of a version history; I haven't been able to find the Latin-language "Gregorian chant" intro, but thanks to the "My Lives" box we do have one take still featuring the Lullabye section as an instrumental break and a far less compelling rhythm track. This assemblage of outtakes also contains a few other takes, though they don't add too much to the picture. Finally, some versions of the single also featured a "Percapella remix."

The music video, Wikipedia asserts, was directed by one Andy Monahan, who'd previously used "the same lighting, locations and camera angles" in his video for Elton's "You've Gotta Love Someone," though to be honest I couldn't sit through the entirety of that one to check on this claim. Arguably more of a must-watch is Billy's Grammy performance, featuring a well-received comment on the decision, earlier in the night, to cut off a speech by Frank Sinatra on the occasion of his being given a "Legend Award." Stick it to the man, Billy!

https://img.discogs.com/_dJXjrn7H5qbePZInUD7bZocAtM=/fit-in/595x593/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-2229856-1291389603.jpeg.jpg

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this is the second time in the billy joel catalog that i've been really deeply struck by the quality of production on a song i thought i knew every contour of (bc this is one of the earwormiest earworms ever written), last time was "just the way you are"

On the Hot 100 for 27 weeks, it peaked at #3 in October of 1993 (with Mariah Carey's "Dreamlover" at #1 and SWV's double-A-side of "Right Here (Human Nature)" and "Downtown" at #2)

damn october '93 hot 100 full of bangers

"valuable advertising time going by" yeah you show 'em billy!!!

imho this song is a masterstroke, and a return of so much of what i loved about "classic billy," set in a musical landscape we've never heard from him before. the lyrics could maybe be tightened up or made more specific in places, but the density of hooks is like nothing we've heard since an innocent man. and the lush sweetness of the production perfectly evokes the sense that 43-year-old dads have dreams and fears, and deserve redemption, as much as do teenagers packing lucky strikes and a mint called sen-sen. also the deployment of gospel sounds feels earned and respectful (to me as an outsider) rather than appropriative.

the fun of dealing with this album has been discovering that rather than one lone gem surfacing in a blah album, this song is just the very best track in a pretty-good album. up until this past week i would have said he basically should have packed it in after storm front and had this be the "september"-style big hit off Greatest Hits III. but it turns out this is more of a defensible album than either of the two that preceded it, depending on your affection for VH1 music.

zachary alford ("known for his work in the Saturday Night Live Band" according to wikipedia) is the credited drummer here but i like that it just kinda sounds like a drum loop

also bless any song in which the pauses get progressively longer

Alford was in Bowie's Earthling-era band too.

I was mighty sick of "River of Dreams" in fall '93, and it didn't go away. At the time it was dismissed as "Graceland" lite. OTM about what a masterful piece of songwriting it is.