Posted on 01/24/2009 9:21:17 PM PST by SeekAndFind
This may seem an odd moment to bring up the subject of Billy Joel. But the recent death of the painter Andrew Wyeth revived a long-standing debate over whether his art is respectable or merely sentimental schlock. (Say it: good or bad?) It got me to thinking about the question of value in art and whether there are any absolute standards for judging it. It indicates the question is still alive, not relegated to irrelevance by relativism.
And then I picked up The Art Instinct, a new book by Denis Dutton, the curator of the Arts & Letters Daily Web site. The book strives valiantly to find a basis for judging the value of art from the perspective of evolutionary psychology; in it, Dutton argues that a certain kind of artistic talent offered a competitive advantage in the Darwinian struggle for survival.
Which brings me to Billy Joel—the Andrew Wyeth of contemporary pop music—and the continuing irritation I feel whenever I hear his tunes, whether in the original or in the multitude of elevator-Muzak versions. It is a kind of mystery: Why does his music make my skin crawl in a way that other bad music doesn't? Why is it that so many of us feel it is possible to say Billy Joel is—well—just bad, a blight upon pop music, a plague upon the airwaves more contagious than West Nile virus, a dire threat to the peacefulness of any given elevator ride, not rock 'n' roll but schlock 'n' roll?
I'm reluctant to pick on Billy Joel. He's been subject to withering contempt from hipster types for so long that it no longer seems worth the time. Still, the mystery persists: How can he be so bad and yet so popular for so long? He's still there.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
Glad to know I’m not the only one. But I still like Uptown Girl for some reason.
Billy Joel isn’t nearly as bad as Bruce Springsteen.
Weird Al answered the question, to the tune of “It’s Still Rock and Roll To Me”:
What’s the matter with the songs he’s singin’?
Can’t you tell that they’re pretty lame?
After listenin’ to a couple albums,
Well, they all start to sound the same.
So he tried to change his musical style.
He tossed all his ballads in the circular file.
Then he found the punk sound,
Breakin’ ground all around,
It’s still Billy Joel to me.
What’s the matter with the tune he’s writin’?
Well, you know it’s gonna be a smash.
It’s so nice when you’re a big name artist,
Doesn’t matter if it sounds like trash.
Now everybody thinks the new wave is super.
Just ask Linda Ronstadt or even Alice Cooper.
It’s a big hit, isn’t it?
Even if it’s a piece of junk,
It’s still Billy Joel to me.
Woah, it doesn’t matter what the critics say about him,
‘Cause he doesn’t worry how they feel.
When you’re record’s sellin’ millions and it’s goin’ triple platinum,
You don’t worry ‘bout your next meal,
‘Cause money is no big deal.
Maybe he should dye his hair bright pink
And stick a safety pin through his cheeks.
Then he’d really fit the new wave image,
But he couldn’t sit down for weeks.
Don’t you know about the record business, honey?
You gotta be trendy if you wanna make some money.
Now everybody’s sayin’ that he sure sounds funny,
But it’s still Billy Joel to me.
All right, Alfred!
Oh!
I can hardly wait ‘til his next album.
Well, I’ll bet it’s gonna be the rage.
Buy a ticket to his next big concert.
Well, I wonder what he’ll do on stage.
It might be disco and it might be the blues,
Or maybe even somethin’ like the B-52’s.
Just a handclap, finger snap,
Even if it’s mindless pap,
It’s still Billy Joel to me.
Everybody’s sayin’ that he sure sounds funny,
But it’s still Billy Joel to me.
Billy Joel is the quintissential “pop” musician. It’s fine to criticize the genre itself, but it seems a bit ridiculous to criticize someone who basically raised it to perfection, such as it is.
Worst pop singer ever? Has this guy never heard of Barry Manilow?
i fail to see what joel has to do with wyeth.
and, he’s not that bad.
i once read that the worst rock song was “we built this city”.
All of the top 40 music was bad during Joel’s day, but it was far worse during the ‘80s. ...glad we’re not “wastin’ away agin’ in margaritaville” or hearing the Village Weirdos. ;-)
I respectfully disagree. Billy Joel is a fine musician and a very good piano player.
Worst Pop Singer Ever? Surely Madonna, Cindy Lauper, Boy George, Kurt Cobain, Marilyn Manson, Beyonce, Celine Dion, Pink, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey (the list goes on and on) all trump poor ol’ Billy Joel?
What did he ever do to deserve being called “The Worst”???
The poor guy!
No, Bob Dylan... worst EVER.
You beat me to it, so I'll just say it louder.
Some reason: The Four Seasons.
Joel writes watery pap without a trace of originality. I wouldn’t care if he were just writing disposable pop, but Sinatra and Ray Charles made pop classics, too. Joel just regurgitates cultural cliches with a teeth-grinding attempt to be hip that makes his stuff unlistenable.
Wyeth and Springsteen, whatever their flaws, created distinct and interesting work, at least during certain segments of their careers.
That Joel is acclaimed at all is a joke on us all.
I have no idea what this author or this article is trying to say.
Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen are leftists. That’s not a crime per se. Politically, they are just retards who think that because they can entertain people with their music, they can use their influence to make the world a socialist utopia.
It doesn’t make them assholes. Most entertainers are empty and flawed people who are serial bad husbands, fathers and think they can make their lives worthwhile by using their talent to make up for their human frailty.
I still love Billy Joel for his music.
But you're gonna get flamed. lol
The answers to this question, to borrow a phrase from Eldridge Cleaver ...
won't counter balance the weight of two dead flies on the scales of eternity.
Billy Joel sold more records than Elvis.
I don’t enjoy Joel as I did back in the day, but I saw him in concert in the late ‘80s and he sounds as good or better in concert as on an album. His voice filled up the forum, and it was just he and the piano. Elton John could do the same thing. When they sound as good live as recorded, I think there is a huge talent.
I don’t enjoy Joel as I did back in the day, but I saw him in concert in the late ‘80s and he sounds as good or better in concert as on an album. His voice filled up the forum, and it was just he and the piano. Elton John could do the same thing. When they sound as good live as recorded, I think there is a huge talent.
agree with posts 2 & 3. What an abysmal state US pop/rock has been in. One proof was that this lunkhead was about the only USAer who performed at the Concert for New York City a couple months after 9-11-01. And too we just never can come up with
right acts for the bigtime football halftime shows.
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