Posted on 01/24/2009 9:21:17 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Last year, Billy Joel did an anti-Iraq war Christmas song. And this year, he played with Springsteen at an ACORN hopenchange rally for B. Hussein in New York City.
Before that, he never really said or did anything overtly political.
As far as I'm concerned, Jackson Browne is a one album wonder. But it's a damn good one album.
Joel’s a lot like Elton John. He has one catalog of solid rock n’ roll, another catalog of fairly decent pop and another of dreadful, ear-shattering shlock-pop. Elton John fell off a cliff when he lost Bernie Taupin. Billy Joel lost it when he met Christie Brinkley.
But the worst pop singer of all-time? That’s pure hyperbole from a writer with an axe to grind. Put him in a room with Beyonce, Gwen Stefani or Justin Timberlake for a few hours and then see how he feels.
Billy Joel’s “An Innocent Man” album was great; I never cared much for his “Piano Man” stuff.
Harry Chapin, Springsteen, Fogelberg, all worse than even early Joel.
It’s Pop music, people.
Personally I’d vote “White Rabbit” or “War is Over” the worst music of the postwar era not penned by Yanni.
Jerry Reed?
Look at Lennon’s solo writing and tell me he didn’t have someone (maybe McCartney) editing him during their collaboration.
If you mean strictly based on their politics one is pretty well a conservative. Can you guess which one? :>}
I’d find it hard to top “Vienna” or “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” for writing. And “Allentown” notwithstanding, “The Nylon Curtain” had loads of great songs on it.
I’m sure you are referring to Dylan. I think Dylan defies classification one way or the other.
I give up! It can’t be Seeger or Biaz...
I like “Rosalinda’s eyes” from that album, and the doo-wop “Longest Time”. I think Joel takes a lot of heat from New York sissies about those, so he says he hates that album.
It’s much like “Thriller”, the apex of a pop career.
Billy jumped the shark during/after his divorce from Christie Brinkley. I saw him suring his first tour after the divorce and he was drinking the entire time and bordering on incoherency. His voice has never been the same.
Both great songs, as are “Summer Highland Falls”, “Miami 2017”, “I’ve Loved These Days”, “The Entertainer”, “Ballad of Billy the Kid”, etc..
And I don’t care what any rock critic says, the man’s a terrific pianist. That alone sets him apart from 99% of the rock/pop performers that have come and gone over the years.
Since “The Nylon Curtain” was such a serious album, I think Billy just needed to go in the complete opposite direction, and that’s why he did “An Innocent Man.” It was essentially a covers album with original songs. It was one of those, “It seemed like a good idea at the time” kind of things.
“Songs In the Attic” is a really great live album, blows away the early studio versions of those songs.
The Conservative one is Dylan. Like one poster said he’s a writter and has penned some great songs. Dylan would be more classified as Folk than Pop. Speaking of POP and persons who can’t sing Kristofferson is another people classify as such. I have a lot of Kristofferson’s albums. The song The Pilgrim Chapter 33 and Why Me amongmy favotites. He too like Dylan is one great song writter and wrote quite a few hits.
I must have caught him on a good night in 2000, and it was one of the best concerts I ever saw, at least that night, he was in top form.
I also have some friends who saw him about a month ago, and they said he was great.
True but he is a good musician though. His voice to some is like fingers on a chalk board. Another writter like that was Shel Silverstien. He wrote songs for Johnny Cash and Dr Hook among others. His singing? ARGHHHH LOL.
Speaking of Shel, I was reading the latest "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" book to my kids last night, and I just started laughing, because it mentioned Shel Silverstein, that the boy was scared of his dad reading Shel's "The Giving Tree" because it had Shel's picture on the back and that he looked more like a burglar than a guy who should be writing kids books. And so his dad told him that if he ever got out of bed in the middle of the night, he'd probably run into Shel Silverstein in the hallway. And that cured him of getting out of bed. Well it took me a few minutes to compose myself after reading that before I was able to continue.
If you’re referring to Dylan, he’s all over the map politically. He claims his songs were misunderstood in the 60’s and 70’s, and that he wasn’t opposed to the Vietnam war they way his generation was. Of course, he said this in an interview shortly after 9/11, when Neil “I voted for Reagan!” Young and Paul McCartney were also trying to sound like pro-American hawks.
Unfortunately, it wore off with all of them. Dylan endorsed Zero not long ago.
There’s so much pressure to conform in that industry. It’s hard to know what any of them really believes.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.