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Song of the Day #314: ‘Streetlife Serenader’ – Billy Joel

serenadeJoel’s third album, Streetlife Serenade, is for me his least memorable. The only two songs I really know from it — ‘Los Angelenos’ and ‘Streetlife Serenader’ — were featured on the excellent live album Songs in the Attic and those versions top the ones found on this LP.

The rest of the album is forgettable. And I mean that literally… scanning the titles — ‘The Great Suburban Showdown,’ ‘Last of the Big Time Spenders,’ Weekend Song’ — I have absolutely no idea what they sound like. Perhaps they are lost gems, but I tend to believe this album is an early valley in a career of many peaks.

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Song of the Day #313: ‘ You’re My Home’ – Billy Joel

pianomanJoel’s breakthrough album, Piano Man, is probably best remembered for the tune that gave it its title. ‘Piano Man‘ is indeed a great song, but it’s become a cliché. Has there been a write-up of Billy Joel in the past 36 years that hasn’t referred to him as a “piano man?”

In addition to that signature tune, though, Piano Man contains a treasure trove of beautifully written and played songs. Several, such as album opener ‘Travelin’ Prayer,’ ‘The Ballad of Billy the Kid’ and today’s song, have a strong country vibe. One of Joel’s greatest strengths is his ability to bring his own flavor to a wide range of genres and he proved that right out of the gate.

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Song of the Day #312: ‘Tomorrow is Today’ – Billy Joel

coldspringharborMy latest theme week will be a special expanded edition that spans 12 days and covers all of Billy Joel’s studio albums. This should be a nice stretch for my regular readers — all big Billy Joel fans — especially after the Rufus Wainwright theme of a couple weeks back.

First, a shout out to a fellow blogger whose write-up of Billy Joel I stumbled across while looking for the material for these posts. His blog is called Bubblegum Aesthetics, and this write-up on Billy Joel says many of the things I’d like to, and far more eloquently than I’m bound to. So enjoy that. But it won’t stop me from babbling on anyway.

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Song of the Day #311: ‘I Heard it Through the Grapevine’ – Marvin Gaye

marvingayeLike many young suburban white people, my first exposure to these great Motown songs came via The Big Chill soundtrack. That album, which went 6X platinum, was less a document of the film than a Motown greatest hits collection.

These songs stirred the memories of the college friends reunited in that film and likely did the same for countless boomers who watched the film then ran out to buy the soundtrack. For me, too young at the time for some of the film’s more adult moments and likely to be bored by it anyway, I was just thrilled to discover such great new music.

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Up

upIt’s become a cliché to say that Pixar is the most consistently wonderful creative force in cinema today. But like many clichés, it’s a cliché for a reason… and Up — the studio’s tenth film — is the latest example of why they leave everybody else in the dust.

I won’t bother with a detailed recap of the film’s plot. Most people who read this will have seen the film already, and if you haven’t you should go do so instead of reading about it here. Very quick synopsis: elderly widower Carl (voiced by Ed Asner) travels in his house via helium balloons to the South American paradise he and his wife always planned to visit. A nerdy and needy kid winds up as an accidental stowaway. Adventures, laughs and life lessons ensue.

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