I’ve never understood why Billy Joel gets such a bad rap. Just the other day I happened upon a Slate article titled ‘The Worst Pop Singer Ever: Why, Exactly is Bill Joel So Bad?’
That’s the sort of garbage that only gets written about artists who are beloved by “the masses” and therefore un-hip.
And my second Random Weekend selection is… ‘Temptation’ from Billy Joel’s 1986 album, The Bridge.
Well, it could have been worse. It could have been ‘This is the Time.’
The Bridge is an interesting album in that it features some of Joel’s most ambitious, complex work (songs such as ‘Big Man on Mulberry Street,’ ‘Running On Ice’ and ‘Code of Silence’) but also some of his worst forays into MOR sap.
Best Songwriters – #10 – Billy Joel
A couple of weeks ago, I posted a comment saying that I don’t consider Brad Paisley or Taylor Swift among my “top tier” of songwriters. So of course the question that immediately jumped into my mind was, “Who is in my top tier of songwriters?”
The next two weeks will be dedicated to answering that question.
First, a few ground rules.
I’m restricting this list to solo artists. No Lennon/McCartney or Berry/Buck/Mills/Stipe band collaborations here. No Counting Crows, Belle & Sebastian or The Smiths.
Over the next four weeks I’m going to feature songs from 20 of my very favorite albums. I consider all of these albums essentially perfect — no bad songs, nothing skip-worthy, a consistent excellence from start to finish.
Plenty of my favorite artists have failed to craft an album worthy of this list. You won’t see anything by R.E.M., The Beatles or Belle and Sebastian in this series, for example. It’s not that they haven’t released albums I find meaningful or even transcendent — they absolutely have — but some of those albums feature a song or two that pale in comparison to their surroundings.
Meet Me In Montauk 