Billy Joel is not one of my favourite artists. I mean, I have some of his albums, and his greatest hits of course, and the man has written some exemplary material, but I wouldn't go for his whole discography. The last album of his I bought was
Storm Front, way back in 1989, and I was seriously unimpressed with it. I've never bought another of his albums since. There are many artists who come to what I call their “Lady in Red” moment, that is, they release a song which just makes me hate them, and look at their former work in a less than favourable light. No prizes for guessing where
that phrase came from!
Well, in fairness, the “LiR” moment doesn't really affect previous output: I'm not that shallow that I can enjoy an artist's music until they record something I don't like, and then say I hate
everything they do, or have done. No, not quite that shallow. Not really. But the “LiR” does affect, usually, my desire (or lack thereof) to purchase, download or even listen to any of their music post-”Lady in Red” moment. For me, Billy Joel hit that point with “Uptown Girl” which, although it was one of his most successful singles, I truly hated, and since then I've viewed his output with first a suspicious and then a disinterested eye.
In general, at least pertaining to Joel, this attitude has, for me, for the most part, been vindicated, as post-”Uptown Girl” I see very little in his music that I've liked. Certainly, there have been moments:
The Bridge is a good (but not great) album, and “Baby Grand” is a wonderful song, and “We Didn't Start the Fire” is clever and catchy, but I see most of Joel's best output in the late seventies to early eighties bracket, and what I've heard - I stress
what I've heard, as I can't really offer an informed or decisive opinion, not having listened to his recent albums - just has not measured up to that.
All of which prefaces nothing really, because the album I'm going to feature here comes well pre-”Lady in Red” moment, from 1978, and I initially bought it (on audio cassette!) purely because of two songs from it I had really enjoyed, but on listening to the album through, I was quite disappointed. Now, I point out that I only really ever listened to the album once, maybe twice, so here is its opportunity to make its case and see if I was really giving it a fair chance or if, after all, it is nothing more than what I took it to be at the time, filler for the few tracks I enjoyed.
52nd Street - Billy Joel - 1978 (Columbia)
I know it's gone down in history as a great album. I know it had three hit singles (two of which are the tracks on the basis of which I bought the album) and I know it's been hailed as one of Billy Joel's best. But I certainly didn't like it. It was, I told myself, no
The Stranger, though measuring up to
that classic was always going to be a hard, even impossible task. But I wasn't expecting
The Stranger II, just a good album with more tracks on it like “My Life” and “Honesty”, the latter of which I had really fallen in love with. I was as I say at the time disappointed. Is it still the case?
It starts with “Big Shot”, a boppy, uptempo number that really isn't too bad. Great piano goes without saying when you're dealing with Joel, but there's some pretty funky guitar too from Steve Khan (
Star Trek fans will understand if I roar KHHHAAAAAAAAANNN! Others will just think I'm crazy, and who knows? Could be true...) and nice measured percussion. A good enough start, nice horns too from various brass players employed for the album, but it's the next track that takes the album into could-be-classic territory, the beautiful “Honesty”, played against initially a solo piano melody, Joel's voice low and earnest, Diogenes in the dark looking for that one honest man. Or, in this case, one assumes, woman. It's a lovely, gentle ballad which breaks out for a short time with a heavier midsection as Joel snaps
”I can find a lover/ I can find a friend/ I can have security/ Until the bitter end/ Anyone can comfort me/ With promises again.”
Everyone knows the big hit, “My Life”, with its jumping, joyful piano melody juxtaposed against the lyric which yearns for freedom from rules and having to please people. It's “Zanzibar”, up next, which sort of let the wind out of my sails, with a more jazzy sort of beat, but listening to it now, you know, it's not that bad. Kind of reminds me of the faster sections in “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant” on the previous album. Joel's voice is as ever perfect, loud and strident when needed, soft and gentle when not. “Zanzibar” also features some instrumentation not used before on Billy Joel's albums, to my knowledge: vibes, marimba and flugelhorn.
“Stiletto” is another jazzy type song, sort of mid-paced, kind of reminds me of a slower “Only the Good Die Young” in melody, with marching drums and nice organ, some very clever bass lines and great sax breaks. Nice handclaps and stride piano halfway through, but not one of my favourites, then we're into “Rosalinda's eyes” (not literally!) with an interesting organ and marimba intro which takes us into a mid-paced half-ballad, with very Spanish overtones (it's about a Cuban lady, but you get the idea) and some piano licks borrowed from “Just the Way You Are”. Again, it's okay, but nothing special, I feel. Probably doesn't help that I'm no fan of Latin American music - I only listen to Gloria Estefan for the ballads (and to watch that fine aaa-aahhh never mind...)
“Half a Mile Away” is very much built on a horn section, and funky and jazzy in a way I'm really not all that fond of, lot of soul in there but not my kind of song, sorry. I lied above in the intro when I said I bought this album for two tracks: it was three, and the penultimate song is one of those, in fact one of the two most important to me. “Until the Night” is a slowburner ballad which opens on piano and guitar rather slowly, and builds to something of a climax to the horns-heavy ending, a triumphant string section carrying the song to its powerful close, and indeed this is the song that should have, in my opinion, closed the entire album.
As it is, we're left to hum the title track, oddly the shortest track on the album (the previous having been the longest), sort of blues and jazz melding with soul and rock, but it lacks a certain something. Nice sax, good piano as ever, but a little flat I feel. After the glorious “Until the Night” this feels limp, flaccid and anticlimactic (sorry for all the inadvertent sexual imagery there!), and a huge disappointment.
No, I'm still not convinced. There are good tracks, but they're the ones I already knew, and on second listen “Zanzibar” is okay, but the rest I feel are just filler, and not very good filler. Maybe it's the jazz leanings Joel used on this album, as opposed to the, in my opinion, far superior
The Stranger, or even its successor,
Glass Houses, that alienated me, but I'm still largely bored with this album. Pass.
TRACK LISTING
1. Big Shot
2. Honesty
3. My Life
4. Zanzibar
5. Stiletto
6. Rosalinda's Eyes
7. Half a Mile Away
8. Until the Night
9. 52nd Street