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Billy Joel: Albums
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While Billy Joel has never been a critic's darling, he has certainly succeeded in presenting himself in various ways during his two decades of work as a pop/rock superstar. Despite a lack of critical endorsements, Joel put together a string of hit albums and singles during the late '70s and throughout the '80s.
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Billy Joel's albums had always sounded a bit thin sonically -- which was part of the reason he had trouble establishing a reputation as a rocker. But this record marked the beginning of a fruitful decade-long collaboration with producer Phil Ramone, who put some much-needed muscle behind Joel's carefully crafted songs. "Just the Way You Are" became the wedding-band standard, but the real pleasure here is the specificity of the lyrics in the rock songs located in New York, such as "Mister Cacciatore's down on Sullivan Street," in "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)," or the saga of Brenda and Eddie in "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant."
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Major pop artists Pink Floyd, the Eagles, the Rolling Stones, Barbra Streisand, and Billy Joel and Elton John (together) undertook tours in 1994, restoring the summer concert business to prosperity after several slow years. Pink Floyd toured in support of The Division Bell, the group's first studio album in seven years.
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Joel scored a Top 10 hit with "Modern Woman" from the film "Ruthless People," a dark comedy from the directors of Airplane! that starred Bette Midler and Danny DeVito (Mick Jagger sang the title track). The song subsequently appeared on The Bridge, which, like the movie, was released in the summer of 1986. Ray Charles duetted with Joel on the ballad "Baby Grand" (which Joel wrote by himself), and Steve Winwood played Hammond organ on the song "Getting Closer." The final song recorded for the album was "Code Of Silence." Cyndi Lauper contributed backing vocals on "Code of Silence" and garnered the only co-writing credit of Joel's entire career for helping him with the lyrics to the song.
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In the spring of 1980, Joel released Glass Houses, theoretically a harder-edged album that was a response to the punk and new wave movement. Glass Houses reached number one in America, where it stayed for six weeks; the album spawned the Top 40 singles "You May Be Right" (number seven), "It's Still Rock'n'Roll to Me" (number one), "Don't Ask Me Why" (number 19), and "Sometimes a Fantasy" (number 36) and won the 1980 Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male. In the fall of 1981, Joel released Songs in the Attic, a live album that concentrated on material written and recorded before he became a star in 1977. The album's "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" and "She's Got a Way" became Top 40 hits.
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Joel signed his first solo record contract with Artie Ripp of Family Productions, and subsequently recorded his first solo album. Cold Spring Harbor (a reference to the Long Island town of the same name), was released in 1971. However, the album was mastered at the wrong speed, and the album was initially released with this error, resulting in Joel's sounding a semitone too high. The onerous terms of the Family Productions contract ... guaranteed him very little money from the sales of his albums.
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