Why 1970s Billy Joel is Better Than His 1980s Form

In the mediocre comedy movie Step Brothers, one of the more funny moments was when the Billy Joel cover band "Uptown Girl" played at the wedding. Why's that? Well, that's because they said they do "strictly 80s Joel music". Why they would limit themselves in such a way, I don't know. That's part of how ludicrous the joke is. And that's because 70s Billy Joel is clearly better than 80s Billy Joel. I don't think many would disagree with this assessment. My Dad even joked, "Don't write your master's thesis on this". However, when we crunch the numbers, 80s Billy Joel was clearly more popular commercially.

Billy Joel, before he sold out to a mainstream audience.

And that makes him a bit of a sellout, doesn't it? Let's take a look at his numbers on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. During the 70s, he had five Top 20 hits, a couple songs that cracked #3 ("Just the Way You Are" and "My Life"), and no #1s. Now let's compare that to the glorious 80s. Well, he had sixteen Top 20 hits, nine Top 10s, and three #1s ("It's Still Rock and Roll To Me", "Tell Her About It", and "We Didn't Start The Fire"). Clearly, Billy Joel was quite the popular musician in the 1980s. And that's because his music became more pop-centric, as opposed to the meaningful and artistic music he made in the 70s. But for the sake of argument, let's look at some of Billy Joel's best and most popular 80s material and see how it stacks up.

First, let's look at his best 80s material. For me, that starts with "The Longest Time". Of course, that probably has something to do with my bias as a doo wop fan. But compared to the obvious commercialism of "Uptown Girl", "The Longest Time" is something special. It features a multi-tracked Joel harmonizing with himself in doo wop fashion. All the a capella groups around today do this song, and deservedly so. Then, another great 80s Joel song is "Allentown". Of course, that probably has something to do with my bias as a Lehigh Valley native. But the song about a working class city is quite a solid rocker, and even mentions its lovely local counterpart, Bethlehem. Again, no bias here whatsoever! 

Billy makes quite the interesting effort at looking young in the music video for "The Longest Time".

Okay, now let's look at his popular 80s material. The sellout stuff, and yet... the #1s, the successes. Starting with "It's Still Rock and Roll To Me", this is the best of the #1s. Released in 1980, Billy hadn't completely transitioned out of his 70s form yet. I like the song. But not quite as much as "You May Be Right", the song that was released that same year and only hit #7. That's one of Billy's most aggressive and rocking songs. Anyway, his second #1, "Tell Her About It", was an obvious pop sellout. More obvious that "Uptown Girl". It's a very cheesy song about a guy who's got to tell his crush he likes her. It can pass as a good guilty pleasure song, but nothing more than that. Finally, there's "We Didn't Start The Fire". Oh boy. Some songs, I like more as time goes on. This is the opposite of that. I loved this song back when I was a freshman in high school, and when I heard that my uncle had the entire thing memorized, I decided to do the same thing! But, as much as I appreciate this song being a list of important historical events, it's really a gimmicky song that's devoid of actual meaning.

Now, let's compare that to some of the beautiful material Joel released in the 70s, music full of meaning. His 1977 album The Stranger is one of those rare masterpieces where there isn't a single filler track. I'd argue the worst track on that album is "Get it Right The First Time". That's how good that album is! It contains the beautiful love ballad "Just The Way You Are". Unfortunately, Joel has distanced himself from this song, as he wrote it about his first wife (who he now has hard feelings for). Well, maybe don't marry four times, Billy. But anyway, the album also contains the magnificent "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant". My general rule is, if you're gonna make a song over 7 minutes long, it better be good. This one is beyond good. It combines masterful storytelling, engaging piano melody, and has the Bohemian Rhapsody-esque transition into completely different parts of the song. But it's clearly better than the famous Queen song released a few years prior. The Stranger concludes with the very underrated song "Everybody Has a Dream", a love ballad that can compete with "Just The Way You Are".

It's one of the greatest albums I've ever heard. A definite pick for my upcoming radio show.

We also must talk about Joel's 1976 album Turnstiles, a commercial dud, but now looked upon as one of his best works. It's a clear candidate for my upcoming radio show, Graeme's Awesome Albums. It features the criminally underrated song "James", both now and then. When released, it didn't even crack the Top 100. And now, it doesn't even have a Wikipedia page... well, it looks like I have a job to do! Anyway, "James" is about Billy's friend who pursued an education, while Billy went out on the road. He's worried about how his friend is doing now. It's a beautiful song, and a rarity in the cannon of popular music. Most guys choose to write songs with a girl's name in it. Rarely do you find a singer write a sensitive song about his male friend, though. But as good as "James" is, Billy's true masterpiece from Turnstiles was "Miami 2017 (Seen The Lights Go Out on Broadway)". The dystopian song begins and ends with an intriguing piano line, and Billy's backing band puts in an excellent performance on this one. Though it wasn't even considered as a single, it's one of the best songs in his catalogue now. And Billy has used it for emotional performances, such as when he played it after 9/11.

Each of the people on the "Turnstiles" cover represent a character in one of the songs.

And we can't talk about 70s Billy Joel without talking about "Piano Man". Though it's a bit overplayed now, it's undeniably a classic song with first-class storytelling. It shows the lived experiences of Joel, who at the time he wrote and sung the song, clearly wasn't a commercial sellout. Instead, he was the starving artist type, playing to his regular crowd at the bar. He was truly the "Piano Man" then. But in the 1980s, Billy distanced himself from the "Piano Man" image. He went for something more mainstream, something less artistic and powerful. His 80s music, though still solid, paled in comparison to what he released in the 70s. If The Beatles were my favorite artist of the 60s, Billy Joel was my favorite artist of the 70s. And that's obviously very high praise. But towards the end of his commercial career, it's safe to say that Billy went to extremes.