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The Worst Pop Singer Ever. Why, exactly, is Billy Joel so bad?
Slate ^ | Jan 23, 2009 | Ron Rosenbaum

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 ...


TOPICS: Music/Entertainment
KEYWORDS: billyjoel
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To: nickcarraway

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.


181 posted on 01/25/2009 9:44:04 AM PST by WhistlingPastTheGraveyard
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To: L.N. Smithee
The entire Running on Empty album was all new material recorded live (on stage, in hotel rooms, on the back of the bus, etc.), and the whole collection is very good (the stupid "Stay" cover notwithstanding). I can't think of another album quite like it. All that coke must have complete fried his mind and spirit, because he's never done anything else that even comes close to it.

As far as I'm concerned, Jackson Browne is a one album wonder. But it's a damn good one album.

182 posted on 01/25/2009 9:54:04 AM PST by WhistlingPastTheGraveyard
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To: dfwgator

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.


183 posted on 01/25/2009 10:12:48 AM PST by WhistlingPastTheGraveyard
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To: ken21

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.


184 posted on 01/25/2009 10:34:18 AM PST by steve8714 (Drill for geothermal, near any town called "Hot Springs". Duh.)
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To: Revolting cat!

Jerry Reed?


185 posted on 01/25/2009 10:38:32 AM PST by steve8714 (How do you know your tattoo doesn't read "I love Mangina" in Chinese?)
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To: MarkL

Look at Lennon’s solo writing and tell me he didn’t have someone (maybe McCartney) editing him during their collaboration.


186 posted on 01/25/2009 10:47:16 AM PST by steve8714 (How do you know your tattoo doesn't read "I love Mangina" in Chinese?)
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To: warsaw44
Wait a minute - doesn't a Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger concert sound like fun! ( the ultimate shudder inducing thought. Maybe throw in Joan Biaz as well )

If you mean strictly based on their politics one is pretty well a conservative. Can you guess which one? :>}

187 posted on 01/25/2009 10:48:43 AM PST by cva66snipe ($.01 The current difference between the DEM's and GOP as well as their combined worth to this nation)
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To: WhistlingPastTheGraveyard

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.


188 posted on 01/25/2009 10:49:33 AM PST by dfwgator (1996 2006 2008 - Good Things Come in Threes)
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To: cva66snipe

I’m sure you are referring to Dylan. I think Dylan defies classification one way or the other.


189 posted on 01/25/2009 10:50:35 AM PST by dfwgator (1996 2006 2008 - Good Things Come in Threes)
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To: cva66snipe

I give up! It can’t be Seeger or Biaz...


190 posted on 01/25/2009 10:51:12 AM PST by warsaw44
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To: StAnDeliver

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.


191 posted on 01/25/2009 10:51:38 AM PST by steve8714 (How do you know your tattoo doesn't read "I love Mangina" in Chinese?)
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To: SeekAndFind

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.


192 posted on 01/25/2009 10:53:49 AM PST by sarasota
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To: dfwgator

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.


193 posted on 01/25/2009 10:57:04 AM PST by WhistlingPastTheGraveyard
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To: steve8714

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.


194 posted on 01/25/2009 10:57:23 AM PST by dfwgator (1996 2006 2008 - Good Things Come in Threes)
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To: WhistlingPastTheGraveyard

“Songs In the Attic” is a really great live album, blows away the early studio versions of those songs.


195 posted on 01/25/2009 10:58:00 AM PST by dfwgator (1996 2006 2008 - Good Things Come in Threes)
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To: warsaw44

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.


196 posted on 01/25/2009 10:58:27 AM PST by cva66snipe ($.01 The current difference between the DEM's and GOP as well as their combined worth to this nation)
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To: sarasota

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.


197 posted on 01/25/2009 10:59:59 AM PST by dfwgator (1996 2006 2008 - Good Things Come in Threes)
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To: dfwgator
I’m sure you are referring to Dylan. I think Dylan defies classification one way or the other.

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.

198 posted on 01/25/2009 11:01:22 AM PST by cva66snipe ($.01 The current difference between the DEM's and GOP as well as their combined worth to this nation)
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To: cva66snipe
Another writter like that was Shel Silverstien.

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.

199 posted on 01/25/2009 11:08:06 AM PST by dfwgator (1996 2006 2008 - Good Things Come in Threes)
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To: cva66snipe

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.


200 posted on 01/25/2009 11:08:10 AM PST by WhistlingPastTheGraveyard
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