Billy Joel album-by-album thread

There was a discussion recently about the critical reputation of Billy Joel on this forum. While the thread unfortunately went off the rails a bit, it was interesting seeing the different opinions of his work. I looked for an album-by-album thread and it appears the last one was done in 2009 and only got up to 52nd Street (1978).

So I'm dipping my toes in the water and starting this thread, to see what others think of his albums through the years, and perhaps re-evaluate some of his work that they previously disliked and now like (or vice versa!). I will also include discussion on the more notable live albums like Songs in the Attic and Концерт.

Early Years

1. Cold Spring Harbor (1971)
2. Piano Man (1973)
3. Streetlife Serenade (1974)
4. Turnstiles (1976)​

Peak Years

5. The Stranger (1977)
6. 52nd Street (1978)
7. Glass Houses (1980)
8. Songs in the Attic (1981) [live album]
9. The Nylon Curtain (1982)
10. An Innocent Man (1983)​

Later Years

11. The Bridge (1986)
12. Концерт (1987) [live album]
13. Storm Front (1989)
14. River of Dreams (1993)
​

If anyone wants to add any other albums to the discussion please feel free to ask and I'll update the above list. The full discography can be found here: Billy Joel discography - Wikipedia

 

Looking forward to the discussion. My Billy passion doesn't start til Turnstiles, but I may chime in at Piano Man.
And what about the album he made, not under his own name, in his Keith Emerson phase?

 

I'd be interested, but I don't want to do more than one of these at a time, as it starts to feel more like a chore. Also, I prefer doing one tune per day.

I'm already doing the song-by-song KISS thread at the moment, which is going to be awhile longer, as they have a decent-sized discography and we're only up to 1978. I started doing the Rod Stewart album thread at the same time, but I dropped out of that because it was feeling too much like a chore to do two at once.

So yeah, I'd be into it, but six months from now or whenever it will be that the KISS thread is over, and I'd rather go song by song.

 

Good thread idea. You may want to include the greatest hits albums since they contain new songs.

 

I could include the Attila album if that's what you mean? I'm not too familiar with the work he did with The Hassles though.

If there are too many album by album or song by song threads at the moment I guess I could delay starting this one until the others have died down a bit.

I decided to do album by album as he strikes me as much more of an albums artist than a singles artist, and kept up the traditional ~10 track album with a 40-50 minute running time even through the start of the CD era, plus the singles tend to be the Billy Joel songs people hate the most!

 

Ah yes good point. I'll add Volumes 1 & 2 and Volume 3.

Early Years

1. Cold Spring Harbor (1971)
2. Piano Man (1973)
3. Streetlife Serenade (1974)
4. Turnstiles (1976)​

Peak Years

5. The Stranger (1977)
6. 52nd Street (1978)
7. Glass Houses (1980)
8. Songs in the Attic (1981) [live album]
9. The Nylon Curtain (1982)
10. An Innocent Man (1983)
11. Greatest Hits Volume I & II (1985) [two new songs]​

Later Years

12. The Bridge (1986)
13. Концерт (1987) [live album]
14. Storm Front (1989)
15. River of Dreams (1993)
16. Greatest Hits Volume III (1997) [two new songs]​

 

Okay then, before we start proper here's a quick look at the bands Billy was in before becoming a solo artist.

The Hassles


The Hassles released two albums, a self-titled debut album in 1967 and Hour of the Wolf in 1969, before splitting up.

From Wikipedia:

The original line-up of the group consisted of vocalist John Dizek, guitarist Richard McKenna, drummer Jon Small, and organist Harry Weber. In 1966 Weber was fired from the band due to excessive drug use (found dead a few years later on a railroad track) and was replaced by Howie Arthur Blauvelt and Billy Joel on bass and keyboards respectively. It is with this lineup that the band recorded their self-titled debut album in 1967. Blauvelt departed the band early in 1968 but returned later on in the year. Dizek departed the band in late 1968, at which point Joel took over on vocal duties. The band recorded their second album, Hour of the Wolf, in 1969, before disbanding. Following the demise of The Hassles Joel and Small formed the duo Attila, whilst Blauvelt later co-founded Ram Jam. Joel later went on to a successful solo career and Small became a video producer and director.

The Hassles
Produced by Tony Michaels and Vinnie Gorman, The Hassles' eponymous debut album was released on November 21, 1967, and featured a number of cover versions of soul songs. The single "You've Got Me Hummin'" was number 112 for one week on the Bubbling Under the Hot 100 chart, their only Billboard chart appearance. The title should in fact be spelt "You Got Me Hummin'". In 1983, Billy Joel released a solo live recording of "You Got Me Hummin'" as a B-side to his hit "Tell Her About It" (available on the 12" maxi single, with the 'special remixed version' of the A-side).

The Hassles (1967) Complete Album

Hour of the Wolf
Produced by Thomas Kay, the Hassles' second album was released on January 23, 1969. All songs on this album were original recordings written by Billy Joel, except where noted.


Attila


Attila featured Billy Joel and Jon Small breaking away from The Hassles. The band were only active for about a year but released one album on Epic Records. The band was a drum and organ duo, with Joel's organ acting as a sort of electric guitar equivalent, and Joel also handled the bass lines. Their creative partnership ended in 1970 when Joel ran off with Small's wife, Elizabeth, although this did not end their collaborations, as Small produced Joel's Концерt video as well as the Live at Shea Stadium performance.

Their only album, Attila, was released on July 27, 1970. Attila has been selected by AllMusic critics as one of the worst rock albums of all time. Joel himself has gone on record as describing the album as "psychedelic ********".

End of the sixties, I was in a two-man group. We were heavy metal, we were going to destroy the world with amplification, we had titles like 'Godzilla', 'March of the Huns', 'Brain Invasion'. A lot of people think just came out of the piano bar... I did a lot of heavy metal for a while. We had about a dozen gigs and nobody could stay in the room when we were playing. It was too loud. We drove people literally out of clubs. 'It was great, but we can't stay in the club'​

— Billy Joel, Interview with Billy Joel by Dan Neer in 1985

Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic wrote, "Attila undoubtedly is the worst album released in the history of rock & roll - hell, the history of recorded music itself. There have been many bad ideas in rock, but none match the colossal stupidity of Attila."

 

I'll join in at Piano Man. I have never bought or even heard Cold Spring Harbour as I was always wary of the infamous wrong speed mastering. Am I wrong? Should I get a copy?

I have always thought that BJ was hugely underrated. Even as a huge Springsteen fan I considered Billy to be not far behind that level. His lack of critical acclaim seems to stem from not espousing the more fashionable socio political point of view of some of his more lauded contemporaries. He was accused of being smug, cold, cynical, short on gravitas and having no proper rock n roll crdentials, whatever they are. If any of that is true, I don't hear it in his music, the best of which (mostly from the mid 73 - 83) still moves me hugely.

 

I like this Hassles tune:



Obviously the group and the young Joel were huge fans of Winwood, Procol Harum, that whole scene. As for Attila, I enjoy what I have heard. There's a tune on the album called Holy Moses that is just painfully vicious. Also has a dope drum break. He hooked up the Hammond organ to some wah-pedals and the sound is quite insane! Vanilla Fudge, Iron Butterfly, maybe even early Deep Purple probably influenced this. Very much of its time but some of it still sounds OK. I'm a big fan of Joel and it is obvious he has had a long and actually quite varied career.

 

Pretty cool...

 

Cold Spring Harbor (1971)

(original album cover)


(1983 reissue album cover)

Side A

1. "She's Got a Way"
2. "You Can Make Me Free"
3. "Everybody Loves You Know"
4. "Why Judy Why"
5. "Falling of the Rain"​

Side B

6. "Turn Around"
7. "You Look So Good to Me"
8. "Tomorrow Is Today"
9. "Nocturne"
10. "Got to Begin Again"​

From Wikipedia:

Cold Spring Harbor was named after a hamlet of the same name in the town of Huntington, New York, a seaside community near Joel's hometown.

Joel would release live versions of "She's Got a Way" and "Everybody Loves You Now" on the album Songs in the Attic in 1981. The first song was released as a single in early 1982, and peaked at number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Mastering
Through an error in the album's mastering, the songs played slightly too fast, causing Joel's voice to sound unnaturally high (one-half of a semitone higher—Joel joked that he sounded more like one of The Chipmunks than himself). According to a long-standing rumor, when Joel first heard the finished product, he "ripped it off the turntable, ran out of the house, and threw [the record] down the street." Arthur "Artie" Ripp, owner of Family Productions and hence the owner of the original master tapes, was responsible for the production error, and the mistake cost him his friendship with Joel. He had originally signed the then-unknown 22-year-old Joel to a 10-record contract that stripped Joel of all rights to the original tapes and to the publishing rights to all current and future songs.

As part of a deal with Columbia Records to release Joel from his contract, Ripp was still able to collect royalties on sales of Joel's records long after Joel's acrimonious departure from Family Productions (up until 1986's The Bridge). Ripp only sold the publishing rights to Joel's song catalog back to Joel reluctantly after intense pressure from CBS/Columbia Records president Walter Yetnikoff, who claimed he had to threaten Ripp to finalize the deal.

Remix
In July–September 1983, Ripp and Larry Elliot remixed Cold Spring Harbor at Ripp's Fidelity Studios in Studio City, California. The album's pitch was adjusted in order to make Joel's vocal tone more mature. In order to enhance the album's sound, Ripp brought in studio musicians Mike McGee (drums), Al Campbell (synthesizers), and L.D. Dixon (Fender Rhodes) to overdub new rhythm sections on "Everybody Loves You Now" and "Turn Around." In addition, "You Can Make Me Free" was truncated by nearly three minutes (removing most of the original tail-end, fadeout jam), and the bass, drums, and orchestration on "Tomorrow Is Today" were removed.

The remix was released through Columbia Records, without any involvement from Joel. In a 2011 interview with actor Alec Baldwin, Joel stated that despite the remix, he believes that the album still does not sound very good.

=========

She's Got a Way isn't his best ballad, but it's a fine first song for a first album. It does foreshadow the later pigeonholing of Joel as a ballad writer.

Does anyone prefer the instrumentation on the original mix that was removed for the 1983 remix of Tomorrow Is Today? Considering it's based on a suicide note, I think the mix without instrumentation is more appropriate.

 

I'm not a fan of this album as a whole but "She's Got A Way" and "Everybody Loves You Now" are both standout tracks.

 

Love this album. My original exposure was to the album that had the orchestration on Tomorrow is Today, so I miss it on the CD version. Chipmunk voice or not, its an album very much in the singer-songwriter motif of the period(think Elton John album without Paul Buckmaster doing strings). Glad that he resurrected "She's got a way" on Songs in the Attic.
"You can make me free" is very McCartney/Hey Jude-like, esp when he improvises towards the end..
This music has stood the test of time for me, and resonates more than his next album does in some way. Its good music stripped down or with orchestration.

 

Nonsense.

 

It's a good album. I would suggest finding one of the speed corrected versions of the original mix that are floating around.

Not mentioned in the Wiki entry quoted by PhilipB is that one of the musicians on the original album is drummer Denny Seiwell, around the same time he started playing with McCartney. Although the drums were replaced on a few songs in the remix, I think a few of his tracks may have been retained.

 

This is where I get confused. Is that an official pressing? How do I recognise it? I presume most of the currently available CDs are of the remix.

 

All official CDs are the remix. Try this:

 

That video seems to be blocked in the UK for some reason.

 

Wow, never knew that about the mastering on cold spring, but makes a ton of sense. I played this last month, and it was defintely funky in his voice. I should have researched this a bit more.

And a 10 record contract... ouch.

I love shes got a way, I think its a great somg.

 

Even better version of those songs on Songs in the Attic.

 

Apologies, it appears I listed "Everybody Loves You Now" as "Everybody Loves You Know" by mistake in the track listing. That'll teach me for typing it out instead of copying and pasting.

 

Yes, the songs from the early albums that were recorded with session players appear in much better versions on the Songs in the Attic album with his actual band later on, which introduced fans of Joel's work - after The Stranger became a hit - to his earlier recordings. And which is why I included it in the albums we'll be hopefully talking about later on!

 

Agreed

 

Sorry, always tricky with those links.

 

I don't play Cold Spring Harbor much at all. The two salvageable tracks, She's Got a Way and Everybody Loves You Now, appear in their definitive versions on Songs In The Attic.