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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PtSIJwXhqY

A Minor Variation is a blues exercise with just a pinch of Otis.

...and more than a pinch of robert palmer in the way he begins the verses with the double-tracked chest/falsetto vocal. which is pretty much the only part of the song i like. this is a wisp of a hint of an idea for a mood stretched out over a way-too-long five and a half minutes.

the main intro first verse riff reminds me of having band practice and someone starts playing some little lick and everyone joins in and you are all like hey that's pretty fun so someone records it quick then you play it back at next week's practice you are all excited to get back to it and then you play it back and yr all like ehhh...that's kinda boring :/

Well, we were due for one of these.

This was one of the two that I was dreading. Listening back now, there's a crispness to it that doesn't hurt, but Billy stuttering and wailing through a laboured pastiche is about the last thing in the world that I'd ever want from him.

ooh now i'm curious what the other one is

"it's such a sad composition!" - billy reviewing his own song

this is the longest song ever recorded

boring filler yeah but less irritating to me than similarly-situated material on the last record. i'm repeating myself but the slightly more convincing sense of musicians in a room playing off each other really really helps, though in this case it's helping it fade into the background rather than helping me like the song. idk it was probably pleasant to play but it's a little worrisome that nobody vetoed its large footprint in the tracklist.

its large footprint in the tracklist

is this the only billy joel lp that backloaded, rather than frontloaded, its singles? the two bigs ones are both on side 2, taking up space that otherwise could've been used for filler like this!

i wonder how much of the frontloading was phil ramone. it wasn't absent in the pre-phil LPs but it was very consistent on those, and it also happens on, e.g. still crazy after all these years, in a way that doesn't seem to be true of kootch's henley blockbusters.

Certainly filler and too long, but still not as generic as similar tracks on other albums. The main riff during the verses is kind of hypnotic actually. this sounds fine in the background, which is more than I can say about tracks like "House of Blue Light"

have y'all heard Building the Perfect Beast? Sequenced well and Henley, I hate to say, is on point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CopYqp0HZkY

Shades of Grey closes side one - though at this point the only "sides" are on cassettes, as this album did not get an American vinyl release until 2014. Self-produced by Billy, the track features the album's lone contribution from Liberty DeVitto (I should also have flagged up Richie Cannata's one-off return on "A Minor Variation"). It reminds me of... Boston?!

Speaking of Bryan Ferry...man, does Joel sound mannered on this one.

I like this one.

I didn't listen to this album in full until maybe 2003 or so. Was expecting to hear a bunch of singalong Lion King songs like the hit, but this was the one that shook my lapels by surprise.

(And yes, I know I keep bringing up the Lion King here. It was one of the first major children's milestones to happen after I had become "an adult," something to be avoided at all costs. That time and this album, by a musician I so revered as a kid, happened simultaneously.)

chorus is definitely Boston! this has some good energy

verses ask the musical question "What if Ritchie Sambora joined the Police?"

dig it. feels like something that could have been on Glass Houses

feels like something that could have been on Glass Houses

guitar stabs definitely calling back to "sleeping with the television on"

"What if Ritchie Sambora joined the Police?"

I'll take "Questions no one has asked in the history of ever" for $500, Alex.

just asking the tough questions

i'm the mike wallace of richie sambora

man, does Joel sound mannered on this one.

i can't tell if he's trying to be mannered or if it's just that he just sounds like different singers depending on which part of his range he's in. this is one of a couple songs on this album side that, in a blindfold test, i might guess were sung by two or three different singers.

when he sings "shades of grey are the colors i see" in the last chorus, i swear i'm suddenly listening to the hassles or attila. not sure if it's the vocal tone, the melody, the way he's harmonizing it or all of the above. but i'm kind of interested in hearing more. doctor c expressed his mild disappointment, when we began this album, that it is not a series of style exercises inspired by Nirvana, 10,000 Maniacs, Faith No More, R.E.M., and Tori Amos. if the album opened with "shades of grey," i might beg to differ.

also, this is a decent commentary on the state of politics in 2017.

whoa this song is great

that instrumental part right before the chorus = chef's kiss

his voice has also been in really good shape this whole record

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.

https://img.discogs.com/Ai_iekfNmFUlGPkEa2sZ62CUXDI=/fit-in/600x596/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-2287684-1463608718-9475.jpeg.jpg

"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.

https://img.discogs.com/Q_Id8ZbtTtItXnXA_4tBcK9INb8=/fit-in/600x612/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-2167865-1267679924.jpeg.jpg

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.