Back even though literally no one demanded it, it's a new segment of The Underrateds!
Ladies, please; control yourselves.
As soon as the Afterglow of my revisitation of the entire Genesis discography began to fade, I started to wonder if I could apply the same experience to some of my other all-time favorite artists. There are a lot of favorites of mine where there isn't quite enough typical "album" material there for this idea to make sense. Simon & Garfunkel and ELP are two examples where their "official" discography is relatively brief, making any run-through a pretty short exercise (Paul Simon's solo career is another matter entirely). Other major favorites of mine, like Peter Gabriel's solo career, don't have the kind of stuff that can be easily compared; in Gabriel's case, what "popular" success he's had is mostly restricted to a specific subset of his music, while the rest of his work might as well exist in separate dimensions from the rest.
Some, however, do offer the combination of relatively significant mainstream awareness with a long enough discography to make this activity quite fun. Like Billy Joel, for instance. Though later eclipsed by Genesis and ELP, Billy Joel was the first modern musician I became a legitimate fan of- discovering his early albums was a watershed moment in my life, the door that introduced me to the world of rock music and its many flavors. And the best stuff has only gotten better over the years.
With 12 studio albums to his name (plus a classical album that, for obvious reasons, I won't bother trying to compare to his other work) and a wide range of hits that are still familiar to most people today, there's lots of meat to dig through here and plenty of hidden gems I love reminding people of, so without further do, let's keep the good times rolling. These are my 12 most underrated songs by the great muse of Middle-Class Suburban Malaise, Billy Joel.
Cold Spring Harbor (1971)
Underrated Track: Everybody Loves You Now
Like with most artists, Joel's first album has sort of disappeared over time and not gotten much attention outside of the most hardcore fans. This particular song is easily the best in the whole tracklist, a fun, driving tune featuring an early test of Joel's finger-breaking playing style and lyrics on his usual subject matter of pretty, superficial people trying and failing to hide the emptiness inside.
Piano Man (1973)
Underrated Track: You're My Home
This was the one that started Joel on his track to stardom, with the title song becoming one of his two most well-known hits. But, let's be honest, as great a tune as it is, it has been played to death, and I doubt the man himself would argue that point. Thankfully, the rest of the album has a whole lot of fun stuff to pick from. For my money, "You're My Home" has the best sound and sentiment of the lot, a truly sweet love song that I personally find more heartfelt than his later wedding staple, "Just The Way You Are."
Streetlife Serenade (1974)
Underrated Track: Root Beer Rag/The Mexican Connection
These two tracks, plus the "Nocturne" from his first album, are the only instrumental pieces Joel ever recorded for an album (again, excluding his one classical set). And as far as I am concerned, that is an absolute crime, because these two jams are among the most interesting, dynamic, and unique sounds he ever came out with. I mean, no, technically "Root Beer Rag" isn't "proper" ragtime jazz, but who cares? It is catchy as shit and is a hell of a time to try and actually play. Out of all the songs I single out in this list, these two deserve better treatment the most.
Turnstiles (1976)
Underrated Track: Summer, Highland Falls
Ah yes. This is the one. This is the rock album that will always be my "first," one of the defining experiences of my musical self. There is not one false note here, from start to finish, and a good half the album- immortal classics like "Say Goodbye To Hollywood," "New York State of Mind," "Angry Young Man," and the titanic "Miami 2017"- is regularly ranked among the all-time best stuff Joel ever produced. And even the "in-between" tracks that are less well-known all add to the whole experience that is Turnstiles.
"Summer, Highland Falls," the second track, stands out for the lilting rise and fall of the arpeggios on the piano and a simple but cuttingly effective melody that contains some of the most poetic lyrics Joel ever wrote. When I finally got to see the man live in Frankfurt a few years ago, he let the audience choose at one point between this and another song, I forget which one. The audience overwhelmingly wanted the other song. I still haven't gotten over it.
The Stranger (1977)
Underrated Track: She's Always A Woman
Standing alongside Turnstiles atop the Billy Joel discography, I can't blame those who would argue that this is his all-time best album, although I personally think the last two tracks peter out a bit (I mean, how do you follow up an album-finisher like "Miami 2017"?). "Just The Way You Are" is his best-known love song, "The Stranger" is one of his most cutting commentaries on relationships, and there is simply nothing else he wrote to compare to "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant."
As such, it was hard for me to pick a song that I think is actually underrated, but ultimately I settled on this tune, where the tone and sound make it feel like a love song in the vein in "Just The Way You Are," but once you pay attention to the lyrics, you realize it's much closer to "The Stranger."
52nd Street (1978)
Underrated Track: Stiletto
This song is a great example of how, at his best, Billy Joel structures every part of his song, from the lyrics, to the key, to the particular sounds he creates on the piano with the other instruments, to create a completely unified experience. The idea of sharp stilettos as the symbol for a woman who keeps breaking hearts is mirrored by the tip-tap effect of the piano, sounding like someone is dancing on the keys wearing high-heels.
Glass Houses (1980)
Underrated Track: Sometimes A Fantasy
I first heard this as part of a live set in a VHS recording of a concert from the 80's and was instantly hooked. Most don't remember it today, and the album as a whole is not remembered as one of Joel's strongest works, but I like the rough and occasionally almost desperate tone of this one, which is very much in line with its subject of a person possibly losing their mind.
Nylon Curtain (1982)
Underrated Track: Scandinavian Skies
All in all, it's pretty remarkable just how much mileage Billy Joel got out of writing song after song and album after album focused on the banal, superficial, materialistic worries of upper-middle-class American Suburbia. There's at least several on every album and the aesthetic of people with just enough money to waste it on whatever crosses their path permeates the worlds of even the songs that don't specifically focus on it. "Scandinavian Skies" is, for me, one of the more delightful of these, an incredibly atmospheric piece that describes a group of Americans traveling Northern Europe for, seemingly, the sole purpose of getting higher than the plane and throwing all their money away. I always feel like I've been zoning out above the clouds myself after listening to it.
Innocent Man (1983):
Underrated Track: This Night
Now this is when Billy Joel really started to try and branch out from his 70's rock roots. This album is basically a mixed homage to all sorts of 50's and 60's pop music styles, including Doo-Wop, R&B, and Soul, and it is radically different in tone and style from what he'd done up to that point. It is certainly an admirable effort, and the album's hits do hold up pretty well- "Innocent Man" and "Keeping the Faith" are solid, "For The Longest Time" will live forever as a men's acapella standard, and "Uptown Girl".....exists...- but it is a far cry from his artistic heights in the mid-70's and for many, the album was the start of his professional downturn.
That said, I do have a strong affinity for "This Night," which hits the very small sweet spot of 50's tribute music that I actually like, with its effortlessly engaging chorus. That's not all on Joel though; it so happens that he directly lifted the chord progression and melody from Beethoven's "Pathetique" Sonata, which he was fair enough to mention in the song's credits.
The Bridge (1986)
Underrated Track: Code of Silence
Listening to this album with the benefit of hindsight, it definitely feels like this was the time when Billy Joel's creativity started to dry up a bit; his sound here leaves the 50's behind and is very much of the 80's, but frankly, that is not an aesthetic that ever really fit him. It's a perfectly fine album, but like Innocent Man it really doesn't do much to distinguish itself. This duet with Cyndi Lauper, though, really stuck with me and is, for my money, the most interesting track on the album. He and Lauper strike a great balance in the chorus and make it a very fun listen.
Storm Front (1989)
Underrated Track: Downeaster 'Alexa'
With his last project of the 80's, Joel seemed to finally get back into a good groove. "We Didn't Start The Fire" might not be quite on the same plane as "Piano Man," but it is certainly one of the most ironclad parts of his musical legacy, and there was a time in my life when "I Go To Extremes" was basically my theme song.
More than anything, the track I come back to the most is this driving song about a sailing man whose home and livelihood is increasingly under threat by the gentrification of the Northeast coastline. It's rather ironic, given that Billy Joel himself ws very much a part of that process, but perhaps this song is him showing a little bit of self-awareness about the arc of his own life.
River of Dreams (1993)
Underrated Track: Shades of Gray
Although it wasn't really planned as such at the time, I am rather grateful for the fact that this ended up being the final studio album Joel wrote and recorded. It is easily his best album since Nylon Curtain, with quality tracks from start to finish. "River of Dreams" is obviously the most enduring hit to come out of this one, but nearly every song is solid, with "Shades of Gray" a personal favorite. In many ways, the song is a spiritual successor to "Angry Young Man" from way back in the 70's, a subtle reflection on how much Joel himself aged and changed over the course of his musical career.
And so ends my revisitation of the discography of Billy Joel, as well as my writings for this, the God-awful year of 2020. May in burn in hell for eternity.
-Noah Franc
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