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 ...
Yeah, but he ain’t alone down there.
Actually, he’s a talented guy and a fine performer. His music, however, is brutal.
How is something like ‘Allentown’ or ‘NY State of Mind’ ‘brutal’?
It’s more than ear candy. He’s written a lot of substantive music.
Yes, Billy Joel was primarily self-taught. But his father was an accomplished classical pianist and his brother is a well-known conductor in Europe.
Personally, I can't believe this thread! Of all the crap musicians out there that have made it big, someone decides to pick on one of the few with real talent!
I've seen Billy Joel perform at least 6 times over the years and have never been disappointed. He's a extraordinarily talented and innovative musician. I have every one of his album/CD's all the way back to Cold Stream Harbor (his first) and learned to love him all the way back then.
However, having said all of that, even I can recall feeling claustrophobic in an elevator and ready to hit the "emergency" button when I exceeded my tolerance level for the Muzak version of "I Love You Just the Way You Are".
IMHO, the problem with Billy Joel's music was never with Billy Joel, but rather with the fact that there were so many bad versions of his music, and the radio/elevator/ department stores played a couple of his songs so often that it felt like he was everywhere all at once -- like you couldn't get away from having those same semi-irrelevant songs running in your head day & night.
So if that repetitive nonsense was all I knew of "Billy Joel", I wouldn't have liked him either -- but there was so much more to his music, even then.
Matter of taste, I suppose. When those (and other Joel songs) come on my radio, I can’t turn the dial fast enough.
I remember I kind of liked one song of his from 1978, but that was because I had just broken up with my girlfriend and it pretty well said what I was feeling at the time. Can’t remember what the title was.
‘Just the Way You Are’ is a nice song in the version that Joel recorded. He gives it a fairly restrained reading. However I can’t speak for the various overbearing crooners who have recorded it since then. Joel is one of the few artists where just about every album has drawn cover versions by other artists.
‘She’s Always a Woman’ maybe? My point is that his music is so varied that there is no single style that you can point to.
Everyone from Dolly Parton to Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra recorded his music. And his stuff is essentially showtunes disguised as contempoary pop.
I love Dylan! That is blasphemous!(ha).
The worst is that screetching Celine Dion! I will forever love seeing her on larry King during Katrina when she defended the looters,” Theeeese people have never seen anything beuuuutiful! Let them once just TOUCH the beautiful Theeengs!” ha. ha.
Too bad they weren't stealing her things.
You hit the nail on the head -- it's a "nice song" -- but not one that I would I want to be listening to repetitively for all eternity. And yet, every oldies station has still played that song at least once a day for what? The last thirty years. Enough already. Give it a few years, then bring it back and I'll like it again.
As the pop stuff goes, "The Longest Time" was closer to a favorite because Billy Joel did all the voices in that song, a capella.
My Vietnam vet husband took me to his first Billy Joel concert because he knew I wanted to go. When BJ sang "Goodnight Saigon", he was completely blown away. He laughed and he cried. He loved the concert & became a real fan after that, even though he had been a cynical New Yorker who hadn't been a real Billy Joel fan before.
Horrible singer. Fantastic musician and lyricist.
Amazing << Hear this. Feel this, and tell me that this isn't music."
That music is completely awesome! Thanks for sharing that!
LOL!
And also, how exactly is he ‘acclaimed’ since he’s one of the most critically reviled acts in pop music history? This article is mostly par for the course.
Do you like showtunes?
I've always liked Billy Joel, however I've never been a fan of his "hits," with the exception of "Piano Man." I would put him in a class with Carol King and Todd Rundgren, amazing artists who really never have seemed to "shine" on their own (though I LOVE their stuff too), but others have taken their talents to new heights. Carol as a writer, and Todd as a producer.
And as far as an all-around performer, Billy Joel is really amazing on stage. I saw him once, a very long time ago, probably around 1974 or therabouts. I still remember that concert as being one of the best I've ever been to.
Mark
Billy Joel has won five Grammy awards. In addition, according to Wikipedia:
Joel was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio in 1999. ... ... He was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame on Oct. 15, 2006. In 2005, Joel was put in the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Reviled?
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