Everyone hates Billy Joel because his first few albums were actually very good (up until The Stranger), and everything else after that was absolute crap.

No, let us save that title for No Talent Ass-Clown (new window)

Typical 80s downfall of a pretty good 70s star.

...or until they hear Richard Marx.

He farked Christie Brinkley. I can respect the man...

He stinks on ice.

There are plenty of people that suck harder than Billy Joel.

Ant: No Talent Ass-Clown ...for example

I hate Billy Joel because I'm from Long Island and no one would shut the f*ck up about his greatness when I was growing up.

Sucka_Fish: There are plenty of people that suck harder than Billy Joel.

Ant: No Talent Ass-Clown ...for example

/er, the ass-clown, not Ant ;)

Combustion: Typical 80s downfall of a pretty good 70s star.

Wasn't that also when he got cleaned out by his manager, who (if my recollection of Behind the Music serves) was also a family member?

I really did like TFA, as it felt like it was the "other side" of every icon-bashing thread on this site. The author did a fine job of taking to task the tool-box that trashed Joel, basically pointing out that the writer is a hipster douche. None of us like a Wentz, either.

Valdes: Everyone hates Billy Joel because his first few albums were actually very good (up until The Stranger), and everything else after that was absolute crap.

I'd go a little farther than The Stranger - I think Glass Houses is a damn good album.

Sucka_Fish: Ant: No Talent Ass-Clown ...for example





Ant?

I Said: I hate Billy Joel because I'm from Long Island and no one would shut the f*ck up about his greatness when I was growing up.

My buddy (and bandmate) feels exactly the same way about the Eagles, for evidently in WV they are revered as Gods. He didn't go to that church and has heard just about enough from the Eagles. Thus, no "Take it Easy" for us. Bummer, because I really do like the vocal arrangement in that song.

/The Dude abides

I like his older stuff.

Because of that, I wouldn't label him worst pop singer ever. I'd reserve saying like that for Britney Spears or someone like that.

I, for one, think he's under rated. One of the best rock/pop composers of the 70's. I also think he's got a great voice. Although I do agree that the quality of his work diminished in the 80's. Let's not even discuss the 90's. After "The Nylon Curtain" things got pretty patchy.

How about every single "new wave" group from the 1980's?

LordZorch: How about every single "new wave" group from the 1980's?

Er, most of them had only one thing going for them, and that was a good singer.

I liked his hard rock phase.
*runs*

When it comes to fighting for the crown of "Worst Pop Singer", Corey Hart will never surrender.

I think that Billy Joel suffers from the same thing Elton John does, though to a lesser degree. Have a brilliant early career with impossibly perfect albums, ride high for a while...and then completely farktard your reputation with a new generation by releasing absolute tripe.

Trust me, if Billy Joel or Elton John had died in the 70's, they'd be revered as rock icons instead of flabby caricatures of themselves.

/The Stranger, ftw
//Honky Chateau, also ftw

When I started switching over to CD's in the '80s, The Stranger was one of the first ones I bought.

I think that Billy Joel suffers from the same thing Elton John does, though to a lesser degree. Have a brilliant early career with impossibly perfect albums, ride high for a while...and then completely farktard your reputation with a new generation by releasing absolute tripe.

At least Elton John has been kind of still trying recently. Billy Joel, just admitted "I suck now" and gave up writing music completely (not that EJ actually writes his lyrics or anything).

i like billy joel, 70s and 80s.

coyote71: When it comes to fighting for the crown of "Worst Pop Singer", Corey Hart will never surrender.


Don't masquerade it. You've just got it made, so don't switch your blade on the guy in shades...oh no...

I can't believe it...

I Said: I hate Billy Joel because I'm from Long Island and no one would shut the f*ck up about his greatness when I was growing up.


same thing about bon jovi for me in New Jersey

His best work ever:

Aren't Celine Dion, Beyonce, Britney, Lindsey Lohan, and all those other women who do overproduced garbage music like them also considered pop singers?

I'm not crazy about Billy Joel, especially his later stuff, but there's a lot stinkier shiat out there.

He's a misogynist? Back before fame went to his head, back in the late '70s and early '80s, quoting Billy Joel songs to drunk women was the worlds most effective pickup line. Those girls would tell me that "I really understood women" because I would quote the guy.

And now this joker says he hates women? How times change.

factoryconnection: I Said: I hate Billy Joel because I'm from Long Island and no one would shut the f*ck up about his greatness when I was growing up.

My buddy (and bandmate) feels exactly the same way about the Eagles, for evidently in WV they are revered as Gods. He didn't go to that church and has heard just about enough from the Eagles. Thus, no "Take it Easy" for us. Bummer, because I really do like the vocal arrangement in that song.

I'm with your buddy, I have a strict "No Eagles" ban in effect in my car. They were shoved down my throat as a kid and now I detest them in every way.

/one of these niiiiiiiiiiiiiigah ah aha ights........

Combustion: Typical 80s downfall of a pretty good 70s star.



Springsteen frowns on your shenanigans.

IMDWalrus: Valdes: Everyone hates Billy Joel because his first few albums were actually very good (up until The Stranger), and everything else after that was absolute crap.

I'd go a little farther than The Stranger - I think Glass Houses is a damn good album.

Agreed. The Bridge was disappointing (his first album with a new producer IIRC), but Storm Front and River of Dreams were both really good.

/yeah, he was my favorite singer growing up; still love the guy

Stupid Guitar: His best work ever:

Oh, I disagree entirely:

"...Billy Joel is great. And he's not great because he's uncool, nor is he great because he "doesn't worry about being cool" (because I kind of think he does).... What he does as an artist wouldn't be better if he was significantly cooler, and it's not worse because he isn't. And that's sort of amazing when one considers that he's supposedly a rock star."

Chuck Klosterman said it better than I could, but he also said it for 12 pages.

Definitely a funny couple of articles to read (Gawker & Slate). I too am from the Isle of Long, I'm actually from the same town as Ron Rosenbaum, the writer of the Slate piece, but he's 30 years my elder and three years older than Billy Joel.

The fact is, every kid (at least every white kid) on Long Island when I was growing up was issued a copy of Joel's Greatest Hits sometime during Middle School, and their relationship with him since has been, to say the least, complicated.

He's not an easy guy to like. He's not an easy guy to defend. Yet every once in a while you'll hear a song of his you forgot existed, or that perhaps you just stopped listening to, and you for a moment ignore the cheese factor and actually enjoy it.

The guy deserves to enjoy the life he's made for himself, and I'm sure these articles don't hurt him too bad. They probably just make him more self-centered and self-important in the long run, because at the end, the true measure of whether or not something is "art," is whether or not people discuss it. Then the question becomes whether or not it is good art or bad; but at least by that point it is indeed art.

What's the matter with the songs he's singin'
Can't you tell that they're pretty lame
After listenin' to a couple albums
Well, they all start to sound the same

So he tried to change his musical style
He tossed all his ballads in the circular file
Then he found the punk sound
Breakin' ground all around
It's still Billy Joel to me

What's the matter with the tune he's writin'
Well, you know it's gonna be a smashiat's so nice when you're a big name artist
Doesn't matter if it sounds like trash

Now everybody thinks the new wave is super
Just ask Linda Ronstadt or even Alice Cooper
It's a big hit, isn't it
Even if it's a piece of junk
It's still Billy Joel to me

Woah, it doesn't matter what the critics say about him
'Cause he doesn't worry how they feel
When you're record's sellin' millions and it's goin' triple platinum
You don't worry 'bout your next meal
'Cause money is no big deal

Maybe he should dye his hair bright pink
And stick a safety pin through his cheeks
Then he'd really fit the new wave image
But he couldn't sit down for weeks

Don't you know about the record business, honey
You gotta be trendy if you wanna make some money
Now everybody's sayin' that he sure sounds funny
But it's still Billy Joel to me

All right, Alfred
Oh

I can hardly wait 'til his next album
Well, I'll bet it's gonna be the rage
Buy a ticket to his next big concert
Well, I wonder what he'll do on stage

It might be disco and it might be the blues
Or maybe even somethin' like the B-52's
Just a handclap, finger snap
Even if it's mindless pap
It's still Billy Joel to me

Everybody's sayin' that he sure sounds funny
But it's still Billy Joel to me
misterhowl: I, for one, think he's under rated. One of the best rock/pop composers of the 70's. I also think he's got a great voice. Although I do agree that the quality of his work diminished in the 80's. Let's not even discuss the 90's. After "The Nylon Curtain" things got pretty patchy.

There you go. That's about it. Patchy is a good description too. Some of his later stuff is OK, and if you can handle the fact that his whole ethos really hasn't changed much since Glass Houses, (Yeah, the themes change, and the technology, but his music still has the same sort of poppy melodrama to it. It's a fact, not a knock), then it's actually quite good here and there. When it isn't, it's pretty fetid, mind you. Uptown Girl is as loathesomely treacley song as pop music has ever produced.

purple helmet: Aren't Celine Dion, Beyonce, Britney, Lindsey Lohan, and all those other women who do overproduced garbage music like them also considered pop singers?

I'm not crazy about Billy Joel, especially his later stuff, but there's a lot stinkier shiat out there.

FTFY

/Not a fan, but she has talent
/Also hot

Billy Joel is awesome. Great songwriter, damn fine piano player and lovely singer. And really he's as good as it gets, he's not Adult Contemporary, he's not exactly AOR, he's just kind of in a space himself.

and here is my favorite Billy Joel song (pops) I was a kid when it came out, and even before I saw the video ever I wanted to create something very much like what's in it. I still do.

She's Always a Woman moves me everytime.

The annoying, drunken lame-os who stand in groups, arms around each other, swaying and bellowing 'Piano Man' when some idiot finds it on the bar's jukebox at 1:30, need to be exterminated.

No, I detest Billy Joel to the core of my being.

He sings like a braying donkey.

Was listening to some BJ tonight...mixed in among the Ry, JJ, Lyle, Tom, it fit OK.
I am product of my generation. I have a small soft spot of Sister Sledge, KC and the Sunshine Band, The Eagles...a buncha other questionable shlock that take some back to place and time.
I don't want to defend them like I will (to the death) JJ and Tom...but anyone who says Billy sucks has their head stuck so far up their arrogant, ignorant arse, there's just no point debating them. Stab them and be done with it.

/only the good die young

I think what bugs me most about Billy Joel in general is how self-congralatory he is about being completely derivative.

He's ripped off the (lousy) cabaret from Lou Reed's first solo record, he's sure as hell ripped off Dylan, and he had the gall to write a song about how he's so hip as to totally see that new wave music is "still rock and roll"...that was a closer imitation of Elvis Costello than anything Joe Jackson did.

WhyteRaven74: Billy Joel is awesome. Great songwriter, damn fine piano player and lovely singer. And really he's as good as it gets, he's not Adult Contemporary, he's not exactly AOR, he's just kind of in a space himself.

and here is my favorite Billy Joel song (pops) I was a kid when it came out, and even before I saw the video ever I wanted to create something very much like what's in it. I still do.

One of my favorite Billy Joel songs also, along with Don't Ask Me Why. He may be a douchenozzle but he runs circles around thousands of other artists in terms of songwriting and talent. Even his 80's stuff was pretty good. Storm Front was a fine album - one of the first CDs I ever owned.

Critics are the same kind of jackasses who suck the fun out of things like a kickass stereo system by biatching about things like decibel levels proportional to the quad-inverse flux anonymizer. Who gives a fark? It either sounds good or it doesn't. You can do a lot worse than Billy Joel.

Springsteen looks like Scott Baio in that pic.

DreamBrother: It either sounds good or it doesn't. You can do a lot worse than Billy Joel.

Matter of Trust has been getting stuck in my head a lot lately. I don't mind at all.

/Billy Joel > Rush
//there, I said it

Yet another psuedo-elitist who belonged in Cusack's record store in "High Fidelity" explaining why a multi-platinum (read "Popular") artist is no good; and by association, how you're an idiot for liking his music.

Save it.

sorr: Yet another psuedo-elitist who belonged in Cusack's record store in "High Fidelity" explaining why a multi-platinum (read "Popular") artist is no good; and by association, how you're an idiot for liking his music.

Save it.

One day, the kids will be saying the same for the Nickleback haters ;)

I have to say, "And So It Goes," is one of the best love songs ever written.

On the other hand, "Uptown Girl" is one of the worst pop songs ever.

Eh... He's not my favorite, but there are much, much worse...

Miley Cyrus and her dad. Fall Out Boy is just plain bad. Jessica Simpson and her sis. I can't seem to handle this. Puff Daddy, Black Eyed Peas. Nickleback and Creed are cheese. Gwen Stefani. Rhianna. J-Lo, Cher and Madonna. Lindsay Lohan? She's insane. Paris Hilton, Shania Twain. Jon Bon Jovi. Celine Dion. Mariah Carey, Akon. Britney Spears, Fred Durst. Paula Abdul? She's the Worst. Kelly Clarkson. Beyonce. What else do I have to say?

He didn't start the fire.