Sign of the times
My contemporaries will duly note that our much beloved, one-time brash rocker Billy Joel has now entered his middle-age-Sinatra period.
| Posted at 3:29 AM | Permalink |
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Comments (12)
The new song is here.
Posted by Jack Bog | February 9, 2007 4:32 AM
Brash rocker or piano man?
Discuss.
Posted by Savier | February 9, 2007 5:51 AM
Thanks for the link Jack.
Billy Joel's the only musical act I got up in the middle of the night to get on line at GI Joe's for. Ended up with first row seats behind the stage, which seemed dubious, but it was like being on stage with him. He even walked over at one point and said to us: "Bet you thought these seats were gonna suck?"
His concerts were the best, but he's a Long Island guy like me, and we both used to hang out at the Parkway Diner (though not together).
Not sure I like his Sinatra phase, but it'll probably grow on me. Makes me feel like I'm getting old, which, uh-oh, I am.
Rocker piano man. What's to discuss?
He gets a bad rap for being "pop" lite but anybody who closes his shows with "don't take any sh*t from anybody" is OK in my book.
Posted by Frank Dufay | February 9, 2007 6:15 AM
That song is horrible. Truly, remarkably bad. And I'm a Billy Joel fan.
Posted by Miles | February 9, 2007 1:43 PM
Miles, I have to agree -- it's awful. Sounds like a cross between Sinatra and some really bad Las Vegas schlock -- no offense intended to Sinatra.
Brash rocker or piano man? Uh, I vote for neither, at this point...
Posted by al | February 9, 2007 2:13 PM
To me, he'll always be the guy who noted the "valuable advertising time going by..." on live TV.
Posted by Alan DeWitt | February 10, 2007 11:46 AM
"He looks like a politician", I laughingly commented to my wife. Of interest as I sipped my Mirror Pond Pale Ale though: we were at a public screening at our neighborhood theater* - a rather upscale joint suckling the city's teat - and while commenting above noted that none of the hundred or so in attendence stood, removed hats or covered heart, for his rendition. A sign of the times?
Not sure of the legality of that, in view of the stink the NFL raised about churches doing such.
Posted by Thomas Ware | February 10, 2007 1:22 PM
Alan,
Thanks for the link. I hadn't seen that clip before, and it reminds me why he was so much fun in live concerts.
Posted by Frank Dufay | February 11, 2007 11:49 AM
The beauty of it, for those that don't already know, was that the linked performance happened just after Frank Sinatra had been given a lifetime achievement award. The producers of the awards show cut off Sinatra's (admittedly long-winded) acceptance speech to go to a commercial. Billy Joel's shot back was later in the same show, and no one missed the point. It was a better tribute to Sinatra than any album could ever be.
If that spitting defiance didn't give him brash rocker cred to burn, I don't know what could.
Posted by Alan DeWitt | February 11, 2007 12:48 PM
Ditto on the thanks for the link. I've never seen that either, and I was quite a fan back in the day. That's really funny, and very him, as others have noted.
He's kind of become a parody of himself, with the tree-crashing, young-wife-having, bloaty-looking thing he's doing now, but the guy could/can really play the piano, and he was a very serviceable musician for a girl like me to love as a teenager. Many flaws on that legacy, but a lot of credits, too.
Posted by Linda | February 12, 2007 5:41 PM
Making a comparison of Joel to Sinatra is like Nate Bowman to Michael Jordan!!!
Posted by Jim Golden | February 14, 2007 3:28 AM
Middle age? Hell, Billy Joel is elligible for the senior breakfast discount at Denny's! So am I, but who's counting?
Posted by Fisher | February 15, 2007 9:26 AM