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

tune-yards is having a heart attack-ack-ack!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-7je-jsuC4

... and clearly, I've been working too hard to get this thread back on track-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack! next entry coming monday.

My pick for worst.

I can't really argue - though I still find "Modern Woman" more interesting than anybody else itt. Maybe having been oblivious to that era of pop at the time, it sounds fresher and more interesting to me than it actually is.

Meantime... I got sort of bogged down contemplating how to tackle the 2001 classical album, Fantasies and Delusions, afraid that a track-by-track treatment of instrumental music would leave us with little to discuss. In hindsight if I'd just done it like that we'd be well past it by now. I'll double back and do it in a bit but given my energy level and to-do list today, let's skip past for a moment and admire two duets with the legendary Tony Bennett:

https://img.discogs.com/Fs7UWqyTAFU3gYTTLJeVqDwd1Cc=/fit-in/450x450/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-3944465-1350075606-8888.jpeg.jpg

https://img.discogs.com/_ul4VcIQWiGQYMLE06M-TTz4lc0=/fit-in/600x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-10906281-1506293624-3730.jpeg.jpg

Playin' With My Friends: Bennett Sings The Blues was a 2001 release featuring Bennett, as you'd expect, teaming up with a range of contemporary and slightly-less-contemporary artists including Sheryl Crow, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, etc. Produced by none other than Phil Ramone, it includes Joel and Tony turning in a rendition of one of Billy's theme tunes, New York State of Mind. Supposedly, it was released as a single (maybe promo-only); it did not chart. To my ears, it ain't bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji2EDTCXHBM

https://img.discogs.com/nuD2H6etZijo7PP5KbP3rj-ChU8=/fit-in/600x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-6523602-1421185053-9807.jpeg.jpg

Duets: An American Classic, again helmed by Ramone, carried on a similar idea while reaching for the "great American songbook" format of Rod Stewart's unexpected hit series of such albums. If it didn't match Rod's numbers, it still did well, debuting at #3 on the Billboard album chart and ultimately going platinum. This time around, partners included Paul McCartney, John Legend, Stevie again, the Dixie Chicks, etc. In a cute reversal, Billy joins for one of Tony's signature tunes, The Good Life, originally written by Sacha Distel and James Reardon for the forgotten French-Italian anthology film The Seven Deadly Sins, and a hit for Tony first in 1963.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCOqn6fpF9o

I am so heartily sick of Tony Bennett that I can't even listen to that second one, sorry.

They've done NYSOM a bunch live. That's all the Joel-Bennett I can stomach (indeed, slightly more).

Did a furious four hour binge through Billy Joel's golden era on Sunday, taking me up to the end of An Innocent Man. Given that I literally just knew the classic tape version of the Greatest Hits initially (and later, the CD version additions), it was super enlightening, and massive thanks to all the regular contributors to the thread. It's fucking brilliant. I was following it initially then said I'd get back to it at later date but apparently that took me six months.

Conclusions on BJ:

So many fade-outs. So many woah woah owoahowahs. So many side-B turkeys! But at the same time, when he gets it right it's spellbinding. Was totally clueless about the content and context of the individual albums too, so discovering An Innocent Man was a bit of a joy. It actually has two tunes – An Innocent Man and Keeping The Faith – that in particular it was amazing to discover. I liked the idea that he might have just retired after that!

Also, I'm not entirely surprised that it didn't come up, but We Didn't Start A Fire was converted into a football song for the Republic of Ireland ahead of the World Cup in Italy in 1990, titled We're Gonna Start A Fire, where the rapid fire spitting out of nouns was obviously suited to creating an amazing nostalgia fest.

I present it here for your delectation now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdnZgmwA9h4

i envy your four-hour first-time binge!

Your childhood memories of each song were central to my enjoyment actually, because so much of my Billy Joel time derives from car drives with the two-volume Greatest Hits on cassette as a kid (along with the Red and Blue albums, but of course). On the chorus of Goodnight Saigon the tape actually wore out so you could hear Anthony's Song backwards.

aww thanks. and wow that sounds amazing... all washed into the helicopter noise.

i realize you said the chorus but I'm picturing the big helicopter sequence

in the wild: "keeping the faith" playing on fox & friends coming out of a commercial and leading into a mention of billy graham's death. (no, i am not a regular fox & friends watcher. i assume billy isn't either.)

On the chorus of Goodnight Saigon the tape actually wore out so you could hear Anthony's Song backwards.

As if Anthony thought he was getting out of the daily grind...and then got drafted!

Ha! Fuckin hate that Anto.

One other conclusion from the BJ binge: he wrote a middle eight on every tune. Very disciplined.

BILLY JOEL PLAYS “PIANO MAN” FOR THE FIRST TIME AT THE BAR HE BASED THE SONG ON

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/billy-joel-plays-piano-man-for-the-first-time-at-the-bar-he-based-the-song-on

OLD MAN: Hold on, are you trying to say that I requested a song without giving you the name or melody? That I just expected you to guess, like a mind reader or something? That never happened, that’s slander! And who the hell calls it a tonic and gin?

oops i didn’t fcc had already posted it
sorry :(

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DYCaz5nWAAAW3X5?format=jpg&name=900x900

Feelin’ that A minor pentatonic

Truly any caption would work

Oh wait big B’s not actually playing any note at all there

Tony Soprano subs for Silvio Dante in the E Street Band

Billy has always been shameless so this photo shouldn’t shock me but it does anyway. Jilly Boel

in the wild: frankie valli and the four seasons in the supermarket tonight. spent out 10 seconds trying to place the song before i realized it was billy. "uptown girl," obvi.

oh man now that i have my computer back online again it's high time i opened up the spreadsheet and unveiled another late-period billy jam!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkmj6_hufko

All My Life, not to be confused with a somewhat better-known song with a similar title, was one of two non-album singles Billy issued in 2007. It was his first original composition to see the light of day since 1993 - and Phil Ramone was back at the console! Intended as a second-anniversary tribute to third wife Katie Lee (b. 1981), it was first released as a Valentine's Day exclusive through the website of People magazine. It then became an iTunes exclusive, and eventually got some kind of limited release as a CD-single (including in Japan, where it made it to #94 on the charts). There seems to have been a video (mostly in-studio footage), but the only versions I can find online look like they were taped off the air and then digitized at some pathetically low resolution, so I won't bother.

I can't recall ever hearing it before. It's... nice? Reminds me a little of the verse from "I've Loved These Days" filtered through the Sinatra/Bennett classicist-pop sensibility he'd been exploring in some of the other post-River releases.

https://img.discogs.com/cvpMDlCbPLArPAIl1YaulBKwvrI=/fit-in/500x500/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-4149460-1356921856-2201.jpeg.jpg

i had no idea this song existed. decent sinatra/bennett/etc imitation, but kinda terrible song. the bridge starting at 2:15 showcases some of the worst singing he's ever committed to tape and is just ugh. and, wait, there are still more than 3 minutes to go in this song? excuse me while i get a glass of milk and a snack. i'll be right back.

Sounds like a cut from a Julia Roberts soundtrack.

Everyone needs to go online and search "Billy Joel 69" today.

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

It's his birthday!

nice

Very good this and hella illuminating about all sorts

http://www.vulture.com/2018/07/billy-joel-in-conversation.html

wow yeah that is a v good interview

wait, did we know before this that rick rubin wanted to do an album with him?

i would love to hear that album!

I think you can safely assume Rick Rubin has approached every single canonical old rocker and offered them the "Johnny Cash Treatment"

ha, fair point. i do not want to hear the billy joel johnny cash roots album. but i very much do want to hear the billy joel billy joel roots album. "miami 2018."

Or Billy Joel's tribute to the great American songbook.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

It's Too Darn Hot

Oh What a Beautiful Mornin'

Etc.

this is a great interview. billy getting yessed out!

"I’m looking at Axl like, Aren’t you interested in, you know, meeting these women? No, he just wanted to talk about “Captain Jack.”"

Axl plans to sit at home and maahstabate

lol

And look: he loves ROD too!

I had no idea he stopped writing songs in his mid 40s.

I'd say thanks, but the damage is done.

I forget, which movie was Christie Brinkley in, Mr. Mom or Gung Ho?

https://i.imgur.com/aen03vh.jpg

vacation

saw billy's madison sq garden show tonite and hearing "pressure" and "say goodbye to hollywood" rendered live by this 69-year-old man who seems like he can hardly walk and who gave us a close-up shot of the hand he burned pretty badly by spilling coffee on it recently and who is prone to missing words here and there gave me serious chills. the good kind of chills.

on the other hand, my desire to never hear "piano man" again was reaffirmed. just watching him strap the harmonica around his neck gave me a mild panic attack.

on the other other hand, "and so it goes" was really nice.

so jealous

wow

roberta flack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack

― fact checking cuz, Tuesday, August 29, 2017 7:24 PM (one year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Still loling

loling you softly

X post to the annoying co worker / disgusting savages thread;
“I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like BJ. Even if you don’t love him, you have to say he has a few good songs.”