Throwing back to the week of December 10, 1983, we find a couple of repeats atop the Billboard Hot 100 in ‘Say Say Say‘ (Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson) and ‘All Night Long (All Night)‘ (Lionel Richie).
In the #3 spot is Billy Joel’s ‘Uptown Girl,’ the second single from his An Innocent Man album, and one of three from that record to reach the top ten. ‘Uptown Girl’ spent five weeks at #3, its peak position on the chart.
Throwing back to the week of September 17, 1983, we have Michael Sembello hanging on to the top spot with ‘Maniac’ from the Flashdance soundtrack. Right behind him at #2 is Billy Joel, whose ‘Tell Her About It’ would take over the top spot the following week.
‘Tell Her About It’ was the first of six singles from Joel’s An Innocent Man album, and the only one to hit #1. Even ‘Uptown Girl’ couldn’t make it higher than #3. In fact, this song is one of only three #1 hits in Joel’s entire career. Bonus points to anybody who can name the other two in the comments (without cheating).
An Innocent Man, Billy Joel’s tribute to the R&P, soul and doo wop music of his youth, is my #7 album of 1983.
A Innocent Man was Joel’s follow-up to the excellent, but under-performing (by his standards), The Nylon Curtain. While Nylon went “only” double-Platinum, this album went 7x Platinum and ties with 52nd Street and Glass Houses as his second most successful album, behind the Diamond-level The Stranger.
Yes, Billy Joel was a freaking juggernaut.
Joel followed up Nylon Curtain with one of his best-selling albums, the 50s flavored An Innocent Man. This is one of his slightest albums, most likely by design. The doo-wop ear candy of ‘The Longest Time’ and the cornball ‘Uptown Girl’ are about an inch deep, inspired by similar songs Joel loved as a kid.
But the album contains a few more meaningful gems, including the nostalgic ‘Keeping the Faith,’ the Beethoven-sampling ‘This Night’ and the excellent title tune. Joel was in fine voice on this album, as evidenced by the fact that he could actually hit the notes in the chorus of ‘An Innocent Man,’ a task he had to delegate to a backup singer on later tours.
Meet Me In Montauk 