Billy Joel

Fantasies finds Joel occupying a genre where his music lacks the originality that marked the majority of his previous catalog. Virtually every form, device and harmonic landscape sound is borrowed from Chopin, Debussy, Verdi and others, and for the most part, Fantasies could have been written by any struggling artist of the 1880s. Unlike Pat Boone, who later in his career opted for newness and innovation, Joel here pulls a Rod Stewart and takes a turn toward the lame. A unique, original classical Joel can emerge with more time and releases