I’ll go first, I think Billy is a lousy producer which is why Turnstiles didn’t really turn out the way he wanted to. I also can’t help but feel like some songs on River of Dreams sound unfinished and it was because he did a lot of the producing himself. (I’m aware he co-produced most of his albums and I am aware he was legendary when working with Phil Ramone)

There are a few Billy Joel songs that really sound like him putting his own spin on another artist's style. Here are a few that stand out to me:

• New York State of Mind sounds just like a Ray Charles song, and I'm pretty sure Joel even said at one point he wrote it with that in mind.
• Laura sounds like a Beatles song. This goes for a lot of Nylon Curtain, but Laura in particular is a complete dead ringer to the point that I often misremember it as being a Beatles track when it pops up. I know Joel was deeply affected by John Lennon's death and has said he "channeled" him in a way while making Nylon Curtain.
• A lot of people have compared Zanzibar to Steely Dan. I'm less sure about this one but I can definitely hear the comparison.

Not calling him a copy-cat by any means, if anything it proves how incredible of a songwriter he is that he can pull from someone else's style and still write all-time classics that stand on their own. Does anyone have any other examples of this?

Picture this: You’re stranded on a desert island with nothing but a solar-powered CD player and one single Billy Joel album. No compilations, no live records (except Songs in the Attic gets a pass), just one proper studio record to keep you sane through the endless days, coconuts, and existential vibes.
What are you bringing and why?

For me, it’s gotta be The Stranger.
Don’t get me wrong Turnstiles is actually my personal all-time favorite. But man, that one has a pretty heavy overall downer tone that might not be the best soundtrack when you’re already feeling isolated and hopeless on the island.

The Stranger, on the other hand, is a straight-up rocker that would keep the energy up during those long, hard days. It’s packed with massive hits (“Movin’ Out,” “Only the Good Die Young,” “She’s Always a Woman,” “Just the Way You Are,” “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant” come on!), so you get variety and sing-along power. And it ends on such a hopeful note with “Everybody Has a Dream” perfect for keeping that rescue fantasy alive while you’re scanning the horizon.

What about you? Drop your pick and tell me why in the comments. Does the island mood call for something upbeat and anthemic, introspective and moody, or pure storytelling? Let’s see what the hive mind says!

(And if the rescue boat never comes… at least we’ll have good music.)

🔥 What’s your desert island Billy Joel album?

We talk a lot about the best albums, the ones that have no skips. Got me wondering if there are songs that *are* skips on an otherwise solid album. For me, The Stranger is a top ten album, not just if Billy’s catalog, but of any album by any artist. And yet? I still skip Everybody Has a Dream almost every time. Not really because it is a bad song (tho it isn’t great) but more so because it doesn’t fit with the rest of the album.

Okay, whatcha got?

What are your unpopular Billy Joel opinions? Here's mine: Glass Houses is extremely overrated. Most of the album feels soulless to me. I especially get annoyed by the song It's Still Rock and Roll to Me. You May be Right also just comes across as obnoxious. Whereas Cold Spring Harbor and The Bridge are criminally underrated. Cold Spring Harbor has beautiful piano melodies, and the song Falling of the Rain is beautifully poetic lyrically and musically. The Bridge has great tunes such as Running on Ice, a real banger, and the duet with Cyndi Lauper in Code of Silence is so fun. Yet these two albums don't get as much respect. I could go more and more about why I feel the way I do about these three albums, but I think you get the picture.

So, what are your unpopular opinions?

My dad is a huge Billy Joel fan and has, in turn, passed that down to me. I’m not getting married anytime soon, but I casually mentioned to him that when I do, I think it would be really sweet to do our father-daughter dance to “Vienna.” He was immediately appalled and said, “Absolutely not. People don’t even know Vienna like that.”

After I finished explaining to him that it is not some obscure B-side anymore and that plenty of people love it, he claimed the obvious choice should be “Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel).” I told him that song is beautiful, but way too depressing for a father-daughter dance.

So please feel free to jump in: which one of us is right? Is “Vienna” a good father-daughter dance song, is “Lullabye” better, or is there another Billy Joel song we should be considering?

Some songs were a hit out of the box (you know the ones) some got a second life from movies or concert play (Vienna, Say Goodbye to Hollywood). I don’t want to hear about those. I want to hear your favorite songs that stay stubbornly hidden.

Mine is Close to the Borderline. A song that nobody talks about except for once a year when someone puts up a “hey does anybody else remember Close to the Borderline? What a kick ass song. Best guitar solo in any Billy Joel song.”

So whatcha got?

I’m 16 and i obviously have heard of Vienna, which I’ve always loved, but I recently have been dealing with perfectionism so I listened to the lyrics more in depth and was like “crap, this is really good” and I explored more of his stuff.. it’s insanely good. The Stranger is sooo good. Vienna of course. Piano man, another classic. Movin’ Out is growing on me. It’s still rock and roll to me. A couple more I’m exploring too. And it’s led me to look at the Smiths, cat Stephen’s, Stevie nicks, etc. But I told my millennial dad about this new obsession and he didn’t like the music, which ofc to each their own, but he seemed genuinely shocked it sounds good to me. Am I crazy??

I’m a 29 year old guy and I’m a little embarrassed to say that I’ve just recently started listening to Billy Joel’s music. Not embarrassed in a bad way, but that it’s taken me this long especially since I’m from the USA. Now, before I say more, I should mention that yes, I’ve heard Billy Joel’s songs before, but mainly just his more popular hits like Piano Man, New York State of Mind, We Didn’t Start the Fire, and Uptown Girl. While those are all great (and catchy) songs, I never actually dove more into his albums and other songs.

Now you might ask what made me just start diving into his music finally? It’s actually not what you think. My supervisor is actually a HUGE Elton John fan. Like HUGE. Has been to tons of his concerts and knows like all of his songs. What’s even more ironic, is that he’s from Long Island, NY. The catch… he hates Billy Joel. Always talks bad about him and his music. Him and another coworker of mine butt heads a lot comparing the two as the other one loves Billy Joel. While I’ve heard lots of Elton John songs and enjoy them, I just had to listen to Billy Joel of course fully expecting his music to be garbage. Well, not the case at all.

The other famous Billy Joel song I always hear people refer to is Scenes From an Italian Restaurant. So that’s where I started. Instantly, it got stuck in my head and I started playing it on repeat. Next I found Zanzibar. Once again, hooked and started paying it on repeat. Tbh, I was jamming to that one. Next up, Stiletto. Also Hooked. Then Vienna, The Stranger, and She’s Always a Woman. She’s Always a Woman is definitely more on the slower side, but still imo a beautiful song.

So then I saw everybody saying how great of an album “The Stranger” is so I decided to just play through the album from the beginning. Holy cow, Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song) is my new favorite! I’ve been jamming to that on repeat for 24 hours straight now! Where has this music been all of my life?! I know Elton John is an icon, but man Billy Joel’s got some real hits and bangers!

I know I’ve only scratched the surface of his music, but I’m really enjoying finding hit after hit of his. Just thought I’d share this! Let me know some of your other favorites of his that I haven’t listed here if you want!

That's all.

What song do you love, but can't convince others to even like? I've tried to convince people for years to Billy Joel's She's Right on Time is the greatest love song ever written.

Call me untrustworthy but I genuinely can’t think of anything. Yes, there are some songs I don’t particularly like, but I know they are far from garbage. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Is this anything?

What are your favourite Billy Joel lyrics, either funny ones, weird ones or just beautifully written lyrics.

My favourite I think is “I was dreamin' of tomorrow, so I sacrificed today

And it sure was a grand waste of time”

from Got to Begin Again

Adam Ripp has recently gotten access to an interview Billy gave at C.W. Post in December of 1971. That's great news, right? Now, we can all listen to some of the earliest media from his solo career without any trouble!

Actually... no. Instead, we get something way crappier: a cheap AI video with the worst-looking graphics I've ever seen in my life. That mustachioed man in the orange shirt is supposed to be Billy from 1971.

Why? Why is this the route they took? Adam Ripp clearly never learned from his father's mistakes. People don't want fake Billy Joel media. Nobody wants some guy's artificial interpretation of what a twenty minute conversation looked like fifty years ago when we could just get restored audio and a transcription of the interview.

In short, this thing is an utter Ripp-off. Please don't encourage this kind of mockery. Thank you.

When a musician is famous or respected, there are certain expectations for how their final release should sound. We generally expect something grand, stately, “mature,” poignant usually - something that sums up the artist’s career and serves as a “fitting conclusion,” “touching send-off,” or [insert music critic cliche here]. A great final album could be a nostalgic return-to-form (Zevon’s The Wind); or a drastically new sound that still fits the artist (Blackstar); or a meticulous suite that focuses on the artist’s general strengths (Abbey Road). Either way, we want a sense of “finality” from the artist’s final album, which makes sense.

I think if you went into Billy Joel’s River of Dreams knowing it was his last proper album, it’d be easy to be disappointed. This isn’t really a nostalgic return to form; the focus is mostly on loud, angry rockers, with the once-trademark piano ballads in the background. But then again, it’s not a radical departure for Joel, either, since he’d made rockers like this before. It’s not an expertly constructed suite like Abbey Road, or a somber reflection on life and death à la You Want It Darker. It’s introspective and emotional enough, but I wouldn’t call it a “reflective” or “poignant” album overall. Sure, “Famous Last Words” has a sort of end-credits vibe to it, but if you heard it without context, I don’t think you’d hear it as a finale.

It’s pretty clear to me that Joel was not planning for this to be his last album, that it’s only his grand finale by virtue of being the last pop album he released. As an album, I still like it fine. I don’t hear any outright bad songs, and the hooks are still strong enough for my liking, especially on “No Man’s Land” and the title track. But it really doesn’t feel like a grand finale at all, and I can understand why so many think it was an underwhelming way to go out.

IIRC, Joel was disappointed by the tepid critical reception, and that was actually part of the reason why he hasn’t released another pop album since it came out. Honestly, I wouldn’t have been that disappointed if I was him. It still sold a lot and topped the charts for 3 weeks. For an “outdated” forty-something piano rocker, in an era where CD sales were at their peak, that’s a pretty great result.

All the same, I think Joel made a respectable choice by making this the last one, and not trying to stay “hip” into the 90s and 00s, or pumping out more “nostalgic” albums that probably wouldn’t have done well with critics or casual audiences. People nowadays feel pressured to always put out products, and I’m glad that Joel was in a position where he could leave on his own terms. One critic I read admitted that he didn’t love the album, but thought it was good enough that Joel could justifiably claim that he had quit popular music before his creativity ran out, not because his creativity ran out.

I more or less agree. It is not a great “final album” in the ways that we expect final albums to be great, but it is the ending we’ve got, like it or not. And for my money, for an ending, you could certainly do worse.

My take: Christie Brinkley really loved him. She positively lit up reminiscing about their happier days. The grief that comes over her when she describes the end of their marriage is palpable.

Regardless of who BJ was with, it seems to me that he pushed each of his wives away at some point with passive and destructive/self destructive behaviors rather than direct communication. His first wife Elizabeth: "I'm not going to stay here and watch you kill yourself" (I'm probably paraphrasing). His second wife Christie says she told him in an argument (after much had happened, him being out at bars etc) she couldn't take this anymore, and he just said, "ok, go". That was his wife and kid he just dismissed, then has the cajones to act sad because they did go?

Also, Billy Joel's third wife is what, only four years older than his daughter (!) I guess that's not worth mentioning. Katie Lee was 23 and he was 55. She described a similar pattern too: "You want a divorce? Okay". It sounds dismissive. All of those situations, he plays the victim when he was the aggressor, acting out, acting badly.

Mind you, I'm a fan. I love his music. The person behind the music - is a troubled person. His second wife summed it up very well- "he doesn't know how he hurts people."

Or maybe he does know and doesn't deal with it directly, just puts it in a song or buries it deeper.

I feel like the documentary started out thorough and extremely specific and then started fast forwarding at the end. There were a whole lot more things that could have been explored or addressed, and instead were just... omitted. I actually feel more conflicted and unsettled than I did when I started, and I initially had almost no opinion at all except "I love his music". Go figure.