In Defense of Billy Joel’s "The Bridge"

One song from the "Shelter Island Sessions" did make it onto the final "River Of Dreams" album, "Shades Of Gray". The title track was re-recorded with session musicians from Philly with The Butcher Brothers producing. Kortchmar did a horrible job with that record, fortunately the lyrics are strong unlike "The Bridge".

 

I quite like I Go To Extremes, but you can hear his talent for writing memorable songs ebbing away on Storm Front. Same with River Of Dreams. All bluster, no melodies. I think Joel knew it too!

 

I always liked RoD, but I had that cassette as a kid and played it all the time so there's sentimentality there too. I still like most of it though. My parents had the CDs of Storm Front and The Bridge so those were available to me as a kid as well and I knew some of the hits from Storm Front (knew most of the words to WDSTF even if I didn't know a lot of them meant), but I never listened to The Bridge. It did not appeal to me as a kid and is still not one I go to often if I'm looking for a Billy Joel fix.

 

I prefer The Bridge to both Storm Front and ROD, but my favourite Joel period was between The Stranger and The Nylon Curtain. He was unbeatable then.

 

I'd extend it to the two songs on his Greatest Hits album. 1977-85. He got married and had a daughter after that.

 

Both are decent compared with "River Of Dreams". The Bridge starts strong (first three songs are classics) but loses steam quickly. On Storm Front, the highlights and the duds are wildly mixed. A piece of s**t like "When In Rome" is followed by the wonderful "So It Goes".

1. That's Not Her Style 5/10
2. We Didn't Start The Fire 6/10
3. The Downeaster "Alexa" 9/10
4. I Go To Extremes 5/10
5. Shameless 4/10
6. Storm Front 5/10
7. Leningrad 9/10
8. State Of Grace 6/10
9. When In Rom 3/10
10. And So It Goes 10/10

More uneven is impossible.

 

I like the songs of the bridge very much, but the production of the album not at all.
The Demos from that album beat the final product by miles.

 

Absolutely, his best period. I might extend it to Turnstiles and I quite like Innocent Man as well although that's him doing the styles of others. On either side of that range are, for the most part, duds in Streetlife Serenader and The Bridge.

 

I actually prefer Streetlife Seranader to Turnstiles, but like Piano Man better than them. Billy Joel hit big at the right time. He filled the gap left by Elton John who'd gone off the boil by 1977. However, by the time Joel was starting to dip in the mid to late 80s, Elton was making something of a comeback with albums like Reg Strikes Back and Sleeping With The Past!

 

I think Shameless did more for Garth Brooks than it did for Billy! Sadly, songs like When In Rome, That's Not Her Style and State Of Grace were more typical of the stuff that would appear on the succeeding River Of Dreams album...

 

Despite all that I've said, if MFSL put The Bridge, Storm Front and River Of Dreams on SACD I'd still buy them!

 

Not here in the U.S.. "A Matter Of Trust", "This Is The Time", and "Baby Grand" were huge hits here. In fact, i'm still sick of hearing "This Is The Time"!

The album is stylistically adventurous, but, i'd say that the only really weak links on the album are "Running On Ice" and "Modern Woman". And, his vocal on "Big Man On Mulberry Street" is embarrassing. What possessed him to sing in that higher key is beyond me.

I really liked the album when it came out, probably more for the sound quality. But, over time, I can finally be objective about it.

"Storm Front" was a very good album, and was chock full of hits. He was back to form after that mess called "The Bridge".

 

Uneven record, but solid. This Is The Time, Big Man, and Matter of Trust are pretty classic, and Code Of Silence is vastly underrated -- a Top 10 Billy Joel song IMO. And yes, Storm Front is worse.

 

Where? Liberty DeVitto played everything on it.

 

It is speculation, but maybe after "The Bridge", and the last two pop albums, maybe he came to the conclusion that he couldn't go any further with pop music, was bored with it, and was the reason he turned to classical music.

 

He was song-writing by numbers on this album, no inspiration for me. I bought it on cassette back in the day, and played it only once.
When the singles appeared on MTV, they used to irritate me.
I agree that Storm Front and the "We Didn't Start The Fire" fiasco was even worse.

 

I wish I could agree - The Bridge is the last time I hear any real subtlety in his music, after that - with one or two notable exceptions it's all noise and bluster, plenty of perspiration and very little inspiration. He did the decent thing and got out of the game.

A phenomenal talent who unfortunately lost his way - having said all that I'd love him to have another crack at it!

 

I think it's a fine album.

 

After 1986, what else could be new?

 

I was a big fan up through Innocent Man. But I was definitely not a fan of the bonus tracks on his greatest hits. "You're Only Human" has to be the worst Billy Joel single before "We Didn't Start The Fire." To me it seemed like the 'cool' factor really took a major hit around this time. Probably from the moment he danced around in the "Uptown Girl" video.

Anyway I was hopeful that The Bridge would be awesome and I first heard "Matter of Trust" which I LOVED! Great tune. So I bought the album and dug "This is the Time" and "Matter of Trust" so that was a good start ("Running on Ice" was kind of ok at first too). "Modern Woman" I recognized from the Ruthless People soundtrack. Kind of ok. Kind of annoying.

But the rest was just boring to me. Yeah it's dated production but the songs are generally so weak. I know people love the Ray Charles tune but I really don't.

The album pretty much stopped my fandom. Then "We Didn't Start the Fire" made me embarrassed I was ever a fan in the first place.

I will say though that years later when I was working in radio, I was given a promo copy of River of Dreams which I assumed would be garbage based on the single of the same name. But I really enjoyed it at the time and used to listen to it regularly.

 

Well, I thought the single was excellent. I remember that some people thought it was preachy, or whatever, but he recorded it because it served a purpose, one that was validated when a young man wrote Joel telling him that it stopped him from committing suicide.

And, I know people hate "We Didn't Start The Fire", but, why? Joel said he wasn't being pretentious. He just thought it would be fun to run through the the notable events that happened in his life in a song. Nothing more, nothing less. Even he was blown away when school teachers started using the song as a tool to spark interest in history, as it was becoming an issue at the time that kids were increasingly ignorant of history.

 

let's see...
grunge
gangsta rap
alternative rock
trance
trip-hop
...and more...

 

You are funny Grant! From your previous posts I know you love that era of music especially. I do not.

To me if I had to hear "You're Only Human" again I may consider suicide! To me it's not the message of the song that bothers me. It's the whole techno reggae style / plastic horn sounds and all that. Plus he sings in one of his most forced deliveries ever imo.

"We Didn't Start the Fire" was a number 1 song so obviously people loved it. To me it was really lazy and pointless. I feel the same way about R.E.M.'s similar "It's The End of the World."

I think Billy Joel had this sort of cool mojo thing going of working class entertainer writing and singing songs about real life. Real struggles. Real dreams. He wasn't as much an 'artist' as someone more serious like Bruce Springsteen. But to me Joel could write a better hook and had songs that would more immediately connect with more people.

And then after the brilliant Nylon Curtain he puts on a 1960s costume for the mostly successful Innocent Man. But after taking that costume off, it seemed like he forgot what he was even about. And suddenly he's Mr. Celebrity married to a super model and inspiration seemed to be replaced by DX7s, tributes to soul music and paint-by-numbers songwriting.

 

I don't know what's supposed to be funny, but I now believe that your personal opinion of the mid-80s is clouding your judgement of Joel's music. Ya think?

I will say that I got sick of hearing it.

I think the thing you miss about Joel is that a lot of the stuff he writes about is autobiographical.

In the 80s, he was distracted by the events in his personal life, like two divorces, his accountant ripping him off, and substance abuse, as he used his (ex-) wives as his inspiration. "Laura", "Christie Lee", and "Uptown Girl". He wrote about people losing their jobs in the song "Allentown", He wrote about the viet Nam vets in "Goodnight Saigon", (for which he was praised for by vets, BTW), he wrote about his experiences with girls in "Only The Good Die Young", for example. Seems the only times he got odd track is when he didn't write from some personal experience.

 

Maybe! But there is some stuff from that time period that I do like and even love. I just think that most big artists at that point in time were being too heavily swayed by some really awful synth sounds and drum machines and quite possibly huge piles of cocaine.

To me Billy Joel is more a 1970s singer/songwritery guy even though he did really good stuff up to Nylon Curtain. I think you may be on to something with the personal stuff being his best stuff though.